Journal of Ethnopharmacology 103 (2006) 484–490 Ethnopharmacological communication Hepatoprotective effects of rubiadin, a major constituent of Rubia cordifolia Linn. Guntupalli M. Mohana Rao a,∗ , Chandana V. Rao a , Palpu Pushpangadan a , Annie Shirwaikar b a Pharmacognosy and Ethnopharmacology Division, National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow 226 001, Uttarpradesh, India b Department of Pharmacognosy, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Manipal 576 119, Karnataka, India Received 16 April 2005; received in revised form 4 August 2005; accepted 16 August 2005 Available online 5 October 2005 Abstract The hepatoprotective effects of rubiadin, a major constituent isolated from Rubia cordifolia Linn., were evaluated against carbon tetrachloride (CCl 4 )-induced hepatic damage in rats. Rubiadin at a dose of 50, 100 and 200 mg/kg was administered orally once daily for 14 days. The substantially elevated serum enzymatic activities of serum glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (SGOT), serum glutamate pyruvate transaminase (SGPT), serum alkaline phosphatase (SALP) and -glutmyltransferase (-GT) due to carbontetrachloride treatment were dose dependently restored towards normalization. Meanwhile, the decreased activities of glutathione S-transferase and glutathione ruductase were also restored towards normalization. In addition, rubiadin also significantly prevented the elevation of hepatic melondialdehyde formation and depletion of reduced glutathione content in the liver of CCl 4 intoxicated rats in a dose dependent manner. Silymarin used as standard reference also exhibited significant hepatopretective activity on post treatment against carbon tetrachloride induced hepatotoxicity in rats. The biochemical observations were supplemented with histopathological examination of rat liver sections. The results of this study strongly indicate that rubiadin has a potent hepatoprotective action against carbon tetrachloride induced hepatic damage in rats. © 2005 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. Keywords: Rubia cordifolia; Rubiadin; Carbon tetrachloride; Hepatoprotective effect; Silymarin; Histopathology 1. Introduction Liver regulates various important metabolic functions. Hep- atic damage is associated with distortion of these metabolic functions (Wolf, 1999). Liver disease is still a world wide health problem. Unfortunately, conventional or synthetic drugs used in the treatment of liver diseases are inadequate and sometimes can have serious side effects. This is one of the reasons for many people in the world over including those in developed coun- tries turning complimentary and alternative medicine (CAM). Many traditional remedies employ herbal drugs for the treat- ment of liver ailments (Dhuley and Naik, 1997; Venkateswaran et al., 1997; Latha et al., 1999; Mitra et al., 2000). Rubiadin, 1,3- dihydroxy-2-methyl anthraquinone has been isolated from the 50% aqueous EtOH extract of roots of Rubia cordifolia Linn. ∗ Corresponding author. Fax: +91 522 2205836. E-mail address: mmraos@rediffmail.com (G.M.M. Rao). (Rubiaceae). Rubia cordifolia is an important medicinal plant which is used for treatment of various ailments in Ayurvedic sys- tem of medicine (George, 1967; Pandey and Chunnekar, 1967; Sertoli et al., 1994; Adwankar et al., 1980; Singh et al., 1983; Tripathi et al., 1993; Pandey et al., 1994). Rubiadin, isolated from the roots of Rubia cordifolia was found to have potent antioxidant property (Tripathi et al., 1993), In addition, rubiadin also have been found to inhibit lipid peroxidation (Tripathi and Sharma, 1998) and the plant Rubia cordifolia have been reported for anti-inflammatory (Antarkar et al., 1983), immunomodula- tory (Joharapurkar et al., 2003), anticonvulsant and anxiolytic (Kasture et al., 2000) and anti-tumor activities (Manohar et al., 1982). In the ethnobotanical claims, it is mentioned as, the roots are used for the treatment of jaundice by the folk tribes of west Bengal and Uttaranchal (Jain, 1991), but to the best of our knowl- edge there is no scientific report on the hepatoprotective activity of Rubia cordifolia. Therefore, to justify the traditional claims we have assessed the hepatoprotective effects of rubiadin using CCl 4 -intoxicated rats as experimental model. 0378-8741/$ – see front matter © 2005 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.jep.2005.08.073