Abstract

Lipoxygenase inhibitors are involved in many inflammatory diseases, asthma, cancer, increase immune response to viral and bacterial infections, leukemia, lymphoma and autoimmune disorders. In our efforts to search for new enzyme inhibitors against enzymes of therapeutic importance, the present study was designed to find out lipoxygenase inhibitors from methanolic extracts of some medicinal plants used in eastern medicine. During screening of medicinal plant extracts, four plants, that is, Emblica ribes (98.71%),Terminala chebula (98.53%), Symplocos racemosa (90.21%) and Rosa demacena(72.40%) possessed maximal enzyme inhibitory activity levels at 1.0 mg/ml concentration.The IC₅₀ values determined for these plants extracts were, 0.66, 0.41, 0.23 and 0.48 mg/ml, respectively. These results show that these plants have some phytochemical constituents which may be active against the lipoxygenase enzyme. Other plant extracts showed lower enzyme inhibition activities.

Key words: Lipoxygenase inhibition activity, medicinal plants, anti-inflammatory activity.