Total steroid and terpenoid enriched fraction from Euphorbia neriifolia Linn offers protection against nociceptive-pain, inflammation, and in vitro arthritis model: An insight of mechanistic study

The plant Euphorbia neriifolia Linn has been successfully used for the management of acute inflammatory, arthritic, nociceptive pain and relieves the asthmatic symptom as a tribal folk medicine in India. The present study was conducted to evaluate the anti-inflammatory, analgesic, anti-arthritic activity from total steroid and terpenoid rich fractions derived from hydro-alcoholic extract of Euphorbia neriifolia stem (STF-HAENS). STF-HAENS fraction demonstrated 68.58 +/- 2.5% and 75.25 +/- 5.1% protection against acetic acid-induced pain and central neuropathic pain at 80 mg/kg. It also showed 98.47% protection against acute inflammation at 100 mg/kg with 1.7 fold higher protective activity than the standard drug. The fraction exhibited this efficacy via inhibition of proinflammatory cytokines TNF-alpha, IFN-gamma, IL-12 and IL-6 by 74%, 8126%, 92.10% and 93.4% respectively at 100 mu g/ml. It also showed dual inhibition of cyclooxygenase (COX) and lipooxygenase (LOX) activity in a dose-dependent manner that elicited the desired pharmacological action. The fraction downregulated nitric-oxide production from lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulated PBMC derived macrophages. The spectrophotometric analysis reveals the STF-HAENS induced ameliorative effect against heat-induced denaturation of BSA protein and exhibited significant antiproteinase activity. Our findings suggest that STF-HAENS could be used as an effective safe therapeutic agent for treatment of nociceptive pain, acute inflammation and arthritis. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.