Abstract

IN VIVO ANTIANXIETY ACTIVITY OF CALENDULA OFFICINALIS AERIAL PARTS IN MICE

Anita Rani* and Chander Mohan

ABSTRACT

Traditionally, all parts of Calendula officinalis have been used for treating various diseases including anxiety disorders. Thus, we focused our study to investigate the antianxiety potential of C. officinalis aerial parts extracts and fractions using elevated plus maze (EPM) model. Extracts of C. officinalis aerial parts were prepared using solvents of increasing polarity (petroleum ether (60-80°C), chloroform, methanol and water) and were subjected to antianxiety activity on mice at the doses of 100, 200, 400 mg/kg, po. 200 mg/kg of C. officinalis methanol extract produced antianxiety effect comparable to reference compound, diazepam (2 mg/kg, po). Bioactive methanol extract of aerial parts C. officinalis was fractionated using ethyl acetate and found that it exhibits antianxiety activity and statistically equivalent to reference drug. Further, fraction was subjected to column chromatography in order to isolate sub-fractions responsible for antianxiety effect. Sub-fractions obtained were evaluated for the antanxiety activity in mice, among all only sub-fraction 4 (F4) was found active, and compound isolated (CO1) from the sub-fraction F4.3 exhibited significant antianxiety activity at the dose of 6 mg/kg, po. Altogether, we can conclude that the results of C. officinalis aerial parts validate its traditional claim in the treatment of anxiety disorders.

Keywords: Calendula officinalis, anxiety, methanol extract, chromatography, traditional, mice.