Rachid Soulimani, N Soualeh, A Stievenard, A Dicko, E Baudelaire and J Bouayed
University of Lorraine, France
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Med Aromat Plants
Urtica dioica is frequently used in traditional medicine for its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, analgesic and immunemodulating properties. The leaves of U. dioica contain phytochemicals such as caffeic acid, chlorogenic acid, high content of chlorophyll and other pigments. The conventional extraction procedures and their efficiency depend on the choice of solvents, which could be toxic for human health and not environmentally friendly. To overcome these drawbacks, a new method derived from green chemistry and called controlled differential sieving process for the dry extraction of natural active compounds without using solvents was developed. This method allows obtaining many particle size fractions ranging from 20 to 500 �µm. This study aims to evaluate the effect of controlled differential sieving process on the safety and the pharmacological properties of U. dioica leaf powders in comparison to conventional hydro-alcoholic extraction. To this end, phytochemicals determination and acute and sub-chronic toxicity studies of the different U. dioica leaf preparations were performed and their cytoprotective, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, analgesic and anti-proliferative activities were investigated. The results showed that particle size fractions of U. dioica leaves derived from differential controlled sieving process and ranging from 50 to 315 �µm had a higher pharmacological potential when compared to the hydro-alcoholic extract. No toxicity was detected in all plant preparations. These results suggest that differential controlled sieving process lead to a differential distribution of bioactive compounds according to particle size and could be a good alternative to traditional methods of extraction.
Rachid Soulimani is the President of AGRESS association, responsible of "Neurodevtox" anr/europe-feder program, responsible of "Arf Tempus, Europe/Tempus program, header of Research Team Neurotoxicology and Development /Inra, University of Lorraine, France.
