Indian Journal of Experimental Biology Vol. 39, December 2001, pp. 1308-1310 An experimental study of some indigenous drugs with special reference to hydraulic permeability L Upadhyay, A Mehrotra, A K Srivastava• , N P Rai• & K Tripathi* Department of Mediciile and •Department of Kayachikitsa, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India Received 9 August 2000; revised 11 August 2001 The effect of commonly used indigenous drugs for hepatic disorders i.e. Tinospora cordifolia, (Guduchi/Amrita ), An- drographis paniculata (Kalmegha ), Picrorhiza kurroa (Kutki), Phyllantnus niruri (Bhoomyamalaki) and Be rberis aristata (Damharidra) was tested on the hydraulic permeability of water in the presence of bile salt through a transport cell mode l. The data on hydraulic permeability were calculated as t (time). JV = Lp x L'.P, where Lp =hydraulic conductivity and L'.P is the pressure diff erence. It was observed that the value of controlled hydraulic permeability (0.49 x 10· 8 M 3 5" 1 N. 1 ) de- creased in the presence of indigenous drugs and bile salt. The results suggest that these drugs might have the cell membrane stabilizing property which may lead to prevention of the toxic effect of bile salts in various hepatic disorders. Biological membrane consisting of lipid and proteins play a crucial role in almost all cellular phenomena in the living cells. Due to the complexity of the biologi- cal membranes, similar model system are used to pro- vide insights for understanding similar and compara- ble phenomena in biological membranes. The bilayer lipid membrane, also called black lipid membrane (BLM) developed by Tien et al. 1 , is the most widely experimented model, but due to fragile structure it is very difficult to work with BLM. Srivastava et al. , 2 • 3 developed an alternative system consisting of bilayers of liquid membranes generated from constituent lipids biomembranes (e.g. lecithin, cholesterol) on a hydro- phobic supporting membrane to mimick the action of biological agents. Thu s, if two compartments sepa- rated by a hydrophobic supporting membrane are each filled with a surfactant solution of concentration equal to its critical micelle concentrates (CMC) a bilayer of liquid membrane would be formed. The hydrophobic portions of the surfactant molecules in the liquid membrane will be preferentially oriented towards the hydrophobic supporting membrane and the hydro- philic moieties would be drawn towards away from it 4 • The liquid membrane hypothesis by Kesting et a/. 5 , also showed that when surfactant is added to an aqueous phase, the surfactant layer, which forms spontaneously at the cellulose acetate mem- brane/saline solution interface, acts as a liquid mem- brane in series with the supporting membrane. Latter *Correspondent author: Fa x: 0542 -3 16068 Srivastava et al. 6 investigated the workability of liquid membrane bilayers and their role in the mechanism of action of surface active drugs. Many indigenous drugs have been used in the treatment of various hepatic disorders particularly in viral hepatitis where there is increased concentration of bile salts and its components in the biliary canalic- uli. These drugs are Tinospora cordifolia, (Guduchi/ Amrita), Andrographis paniculata (Kalmegha), Picrorhiza kurroa (Kutki), Phyllantnus niruri (Bhoomyamalaki) and Berberis a ri stata (Daruhari- dra). The exact mechanism of action of these drugs have not yet been well defined except few (Phylan- thus niruri) where some antiviral property have been demonstrated. One of the novel explanation of these drugs are that they may affect the hydraulic perme- ability of water in the presence of bile salt. Thus, keeping above facts in view the present study was planned to investigate the effect of these drugs, separately and .in combination, on the hydraulic per- meability in the presence of lecithin cholesterol and bile salt through transport cell model. The hydraulic permeability of indigenous drugs were studied on transport cell model as described by Srivastava et al. 2 • It consisted by essentially of two compartments C and D separated by a Sartorius cel- lulose acetate micro filtration membrane (cat No 11107, average pore size 0.2 )lm and thickness 1 xl0-4 m). An aqueous solution of lecithin cholesterol mixture of fixed composition was added to compart- ment C of the transport cell along with th e aqueous