Evaluation on the traditional safe use of Kochiae Fructus oriented by antioxidant properties and oral safety of its ethanolic extract

Xuelin Chen; Kun Zhang; Hanlei Wang; Xia Zhao; Yumei Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.toxicon.2024.107725

Evaluation on the traditional safe use of Kochiae Fructus oriented by antioxidant properties and oral safety of its ethanolic extract

Toxicon. 2024 Apr 18:243:107725. doi: 10.1016/j.toxicon.2024.107725. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Xuelin Chen¹, Kun Zhang², Hanlei Wang², Xia Zhao¹, Yumei Zhang³

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Tropical Plant Resource and Sustainable Use Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650223, PR China.
² Key Laboratory of Tropical Plant Resource and Sustainable Use Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650223, PR China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, PR China.
³ Key Laboratory of Tropical Plant Resource and Sustainable Use Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650223, PR China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, PR China. Electronic address: zymei@xtbg.ac.cn.

PMID: 38642904
DOI: 10.1016/j.toxicon.2024.107725

Abstract

Kochiae Fructus (KF) is a traditional Chinese medicine, which has been used to delay aging and treat inflammation, such as rubella, eczema, cutaneous pruritus, etc. In order to fully understand the traditional medicinal value of KF, we evaluated the antioxidant properties and oral safety of its ethanolic extract. Considering flavonoids and phenolics in medicinal plants generally have strong antioxidant activity, we firstly detected the total flavonoids and phenolics contents of KFEE and its fractions. Secondly, we evaluated the antioxidant activities of KFEE and its fractions. Finally, we evaluated the oral safety of KFEE by the acute and 28-day subacute toxicities. The n-butanol fraction (ENBF) possessed the highest phenolics and flavonoids with values of 77.30 ± 3.17 mg gallic acid equivalents/g and 228.81 ± 7.56 mg rutin equivalents/g, respectively. The results of antioxidant tests showed that ENBF possessed potent antioxidant ability. Among them, the high antioxidation capacity observed in ENBF could be attributed to its rich content of flavonoids and phenolics. The results of toxicological studies showed that the LD₅₀ value of KFEE was 6000 mg/kg BW, and the no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) of KFEE was 600 mg/kg BW. According to the standards of the American Academy of Sciences for the classification of toxic substances, KFEE can be classified as practically non-toxic substance, which provided valuable evidence for the oral safety of KF as a natural aging delay medicine.

Keywords: Antioxidant activity; Delay aging; Kochia scoparia; Kochiae fructus; Oral safety.