Abstract

Toxicity, antioxidative, antibacterial and biological activities of poisonous plants of Al-Hassa

Author(s): Magdy M.Youssef, Yehia A.Hussein, Saad S.Al-Shokair

Poisonous plants are widely distributed allover the world. The diagnoses of toxicity by these plants are very difficult. We choose five poisonous plants from Al- Hassa in the Eastern region of Saudi Arabian, Anagallus arvensis, Convolvulus arvensis, Euphorbia helioscopia, Sisymbrium irio and Withania somnifera. LD50 of these plants were 10.718, 500.0, 1211.7, 4.133, 522.27 mg/kg.bwt i.p. in rats, respectively. Rats poisoned by A. arvensis suffered fromanorexia, restlessness, diarrhea, thirst (the animal goes toward drinking water), difficult breathing, and tremors and ended by coma and death of some individuals. Rats poisoned by C. arvensis showed mild toxic, it causes diarrhea, diuretic, laxative. Rats poisoned by E. helioscopia included increase activity and irritability, salivation, itching the nose and mouth on the cage floor, and diarrhea. The animals were tried to make tunnels under the bed and they were reluctant to stand at the cage corners. The animals closed its eyes and become calm. The animal poisoned by S. irio showed close eyes, extended head and neck, tend to sleep on the sternum, often that tremors, tend to hop, convulsion with elevated tail, increased respiration, dyspnea, cyanosis of the mouth and legs, very obvious cyanosis with elapsed time, gasping and coma followed by death with the appearance of luster of eye cornea. Poisoning of W. somnifera increased heart and respiratory rates, unconsciousness, closed eyes, stupor and paralysis of the hind legs, after which the animals became drowsy and finally died. On the other hand, various signs appeared such as shaking of the head, licking of the legs, petecheal hemorrhages from the eye canthus, lying on the sternum, creeping on the abdomen. Diarrhea occurring on the 2nd day and lastly irregular gasping fits ending by coma and death. In the present study, the aqueous extracts of the Withania somnifera, Convolvulus arvensis and Sisymbrium irio inhibited superoxide radical generation. The aqueous plant extracts exhibited different degradation effect on both DNA and bovine serum albumin. There are diverse antibacterial effects of the aqueous extracts on both GramsÂ’ positive and negative bacterial strains.