Study on bioactivity of Moringa oleifera

• Main Authors: Jie Chen, 陳傑
• Other Authors: 楊宗熙
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/50050243445768354422

碩士 === 中國醫藥大學 === 藥用化妝品學系碩士班 === 100 === Moringa oleifera, a shrub or small tree originates in western Himalayan Mountain, and belongs to the Leguminosea family. The tree is referred to as drumstick tree, tree of miracle, Indian moringa etc. and has exceptionally high nutritional values from a vegetative source, with rich vitamins, and minerals. In addition of eating seed pods and leaves in dishes, the leaves are even ingested raw directly as a greenery. Ethnobotanically, the tree is known to reduce blood pressure, enhance deficient immunity, cure diabetes, bone diseases, and various tumors, inflammations etc. In earlier days, the oil from the species was prepared as a perfume. The seeds can be prepared as a good water purifier, and roots of the tree used as a condiment. Almost the entire tree is useful, and high economic value is provided by the species. There are a total of 14 species in the family. In Taiwan, 3 species are cultivated as vegetables which are M. oleifera, M. oleifera PKMI, and M. stenopetala. Fresh wood of M.oleifera weighted 10 kg was extracted with 95% ethanol. The extract was fractionated and the Hexane layer was subjected to an HPLC analysis. Two main sterols, β-sitosterol, and stigmasterol were isolated. Since these compounds have very poor solubility in commonly used experimental solvents, water and ethanol, they often precipitate out before coming in contact with the targeted cells and making the study of their pharmaceutical property very difficult. Thus, in this study, the purpose of our study was to develop a means of delivering the substances to a cellular assay system. We used a low toxicity solvent formulation to encapisulate the sterol compounds in an aqueous cell culture medium and achieved homogenous dispersion of the compounds. Subsequently using a murine macrophage cell and a human skin fibroblast cell models, we investigated the molecular mechanisms of anti-inflammatory activities of the compounds. This is the first known case of attempting to use a mixed solvent formulation to increase the solubility and homogeneity of sterol compounds in water which allow the effective medicinal development and applications of sterols that exists in large quantities in certain natural products. Up to now, our understandings of the roles sterol compounds play at cellular molecular mechanism level are quite sketchy. We expect that through the experimental model we’ve demonstrated here, the roles of sterols in the pathways of cellular signal transmission can be delineated in the future. And it will become an important benchmark in new drug developments.