Журнал биоэквивалентности и биодоступности

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Free Radical Scavenging Activity of the Medicinal Malaysian Leech Saliva Extract, Hirudinaria manillensis

Abbas Mohammad Ghawi, Abdualrahman M. Abdualkader, Ahmed Merzouk and Mohamed Alaama

Antioxidants from natural sources have been arisen as prophylactic and therapeutical agents in many life-threatening disorders such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Leech therapy has been used since the extreme old ages in a variety of abnormalities. The current study was executed to examine the antioxidant activity of the salivary gland secretion of the medicinal Malaysian leech using DPPH free radical scavenging activity method. Leech saliva extract (LSE) was collected from starved leeches after feeding them on the phagostimulatory solution of 0.001M arginine in 0.15 M sodium chloride. Total protein concentration was 78.753 ± 2.406 μg/ml. A series of different dilutions of LSE were mixed with DPPH in a methanolic medium and the changes in absorbance were measured at 516nm. Results showed that LSE expressed a free radical scavenging activity with IC 50 of 7.282 μg/ml compared with 5.803 μg/ml of L-ascorbic acid as a positive control. Therefore, this study revealed that the proteomic contents of LSE are promising natural antioxidants.