As a decoction prepared from crushed dried leaves and stems of
As a decoction prepared from crushed dried leaves and stems of the plant. It is a plant listed among the National Assessment Red List of South Africa [5, 6]. The extract of the plant has demonstrated the potentiality of relaxing the rabbit corpus carvenosum smooth muscle [7]. Fractionation of the organic extract also led to the isolation of five compounds PubMed ID:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25681438 identified as lignans [7]. The four compounds showed minimum/non-cytotoxicity in the Chinese Hamster ovarian (CHO) toxicity assay at the effective concentrations. The aqueous and organic extracts and compounds isolated from M. angustifolia have been evaluated in relevant in-vitro and in-vivo biological assays for erectile dysfunction and libido [7]. Many get AM152 unpublished studies have reported the potential of the plant as a source of novel compounds for the development of new drugs [7]. CSIR Bioscience has established a protocol for the successful propagation of the plant for commercial purposes. However, there is a dearth of information in scientific literature, to the best of our knowledge, on the aphrodisiac effect of M. angustifolia. We believe that the commercialization of the products derived from the plant could be used to target the complementary medicine market thereby allowing a certain level of claim for efficacy in managing erectile dysfunction or the improvement of libido in males and females. It is with all this background that this study thus has the aim of investigating the aphrodisiac effect of M. angustifolia extract on the sexual behaviour of male Wistar rats.Experimental procedureThe experiment was carried out at the Animal House Unit of the Central Analytical Laboratory, University of Fort Hare. The animals were handled in accordance with the guidelines and principles of the University Ethical Committee. Animals were fed with Epol feed Chunks, South Africa, and tap water under hygienic conditions. Temperature was 23 ?1 ; photoperiod was 12 h natural light and 12 h dark while humidity was 45?0 .Animal groupings and extract administrationMethodsPreparation of the aqueous extract of M. angustifolia Collection of plant material of M. angustifoliaSeventy-five (75) male Wistar rats (Rattus norvegicus) each weighing 270.00 ?5.21 g and 75 females weighing 250.00 ?4.35 g were bred and raised in the Animal House Unit. The male rats were completely randomized into 5 groups of 15 rats each. Sildenafil (trade name Viagra), is the first pharmacologically approved remedy for impotence, and its availability has brought millions of couples to erectile dysfunction treatment [3]. Hence, in this study, Viagra was used as the positive control drug and since the extracts were readily soluble in 1 EtOH in water only, 1 EtOH in water was used as the negative control. Oral administration of the extract (3, 30 and 300 mg/kg), Viagra (50 mg/kg) body weight and 6.7 mL/ kg of 1 EtOH in water (1 ml) was done daily using metal gavaging cannula. Selection of the extract doses was based on previous studies [4, 8, 9] on rats using herbal extracts. Potential aphrodisiac activity and toxicity were considered for the selection of lowest (3 mg/kg) and highest 300 mg/kg) doses respectively. The female rats were prepared and made receptive by the sequential administration of oestradiol PubMed ID:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26780312 benzoate (10 mg / 100 g body weight) and progesterone (0.5 mg/ 100 g body weight) through subcutaneous injections, 48 h and 4 h respectively, prior to pairing [10, 11].Observation of sexual behaviourThe aerial part of t.
