Antioxidant, anti-acetylcholinesterase, anti-inflammatory and DNA protection activities of Glaucium grandiflorum var. grandiflorum.

In this study, the antioxidant, antiacetylcholinesterase, anti-inflammatory, and DNA protecting activities of the aerial parts of Glaucium grandiflorum var. grandiflorum were evaluated. It was found that the lyophilized methanolic extract exhibited an inhibitory capacity against FeCl3/ascorbic acid induced posphatidylcholine liposome oxidation (EC50 = 2.62  0.08 mg/mL), quenched HOCl (5.87  0.07 mg/mL ), stable DPPH (EC50 = 2.03  0.17 mg/mL) and ABTS cation radicals (EC50 = 4.80  0.14 mg/mL) and acted as reductant as expressed by the FRAP value (2.453  0.07 mM/L Fe2+). The acethylcholinesterase inhibition capacity of the lyophilized methanolic extract at 320 μg/mL (80.75  1.59%) was found to be strong and almost equal to the inhibition capacity of the positive control, galantamine (82.23  2.21%) at 25 μg/mL. The significant AChE inhibitory activity suggests that the extract may be beneficial in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. The extract also showed inhibitory activity against plasmid DNA damage (94 %), as well as COX-2 (69.05 %), which is a target for many anti-inflammatory and cancer-preventive drugs. These results indicate that G. grandiflorum var. grandiflorum methanolic extract is an excellent source of compounds with antioxidant, anti-cholinesterase and anti-inflammatory properties that prevent DNA damage.