PHYTOCHEMICAL AND PRELIMINARY TOXICITY STUDY OF SESBANIA GRANDIFLORA (LINN.) FLOWERS

Sesbania grandiflora Linn. (Family: Fabaceae) is widespread distributed West Bengal, Assam, Karnataka and North-Eastern. The present study intended with various phytochemical screening and toxicity studies were carried out on the flowers of Sesbania grandiflora. Preliminary phytochemical evalution of the methanolic and aqueous extracts of revealed that presence of corbohydrate, proteins, amino acids, saponins, flavonoids, alkaloids, tannins and glycosides. The acute toxicity study was performed to determined LD50 of methanolic extract 200-400 mg/kg, and aqueous extract250-500 mg/kg.


Introduction:
Extractability of plant parts provides an idea regarding the amount of extract present in a definite quantity of drug. The extractability also serves as a tool for quality control of a plant-drug. The toxicity studies drug extracts provide preliminary information regarding the useful properties likely to possessed by the extract and at the same time provide the LD 50 . Different signs and symptoms during gross observational studies of a drug give an idea regarding the type of drug action and dose to be employed. Therefore, on the basis of toxicities, the therapeutic dose and route of administration of drug can also be known. 1 Photochemicals with biological activity have had great utility as pharmaceuticals and pharmacological actions .These type of activities' of herbal drugs are due to the presence of various active principals or phytoconstituents like alkaloids, glycosides, reducing sugar, tannins, saponins, resins, phytosterols, flavonoids, organic acids, essential oils, fixed oils etc. Although in recent times, synthetic drugs are used extensively in modern medicine systems. However many modern medicines are developed through the clues obtained from phytochemicals.
More over the phytochemicals are even today are important resources for medicinal uses. The plant products are becoming more popular than the synthetic drugs due to their low toxicity and long standing experience of exposure of these drugs in ethnic medicine system like Ayurveda.
Sesbania grandiflora (Linn.) belongs to the plant family Fabaceae is found in tropical Asia and North Australia. In India it is found at West Bengal, Assam, Karnataka and North-Eastern. It is cultivated as an ornamental plant, grows wild in hedges and shady forests 2 . A short-lived, quick growing, soft-wooded tree, 6.9m height 0.6m in girth; leaves pinnate, 15-30 cm long; leaflets 42-62 liner oblong; flowers 6-10 cm long with showy, fleshy, white, crimson, red or pink petals. Pods 30 cm or longer, rather flat and somewhat 4cornered, non-torulose, septate with swollen margins and 15-20 pale-colourd seeds 3,4 .
The present study is designed to identify the phytochemical constituents of the flower and to evaluate the toxicity of various extracts in female albino mice.

Preparation of Extracts:
The flowers of Sesbania grandiflora (Linn.) were collected and shade dried. The dried flowers were coarse powdered and the powder was packed in to soxhlet column and extracted successively with petroleum ether (60 -80C), methanol (60C) and distilled water.
The extracts were concentrated by using rotary flash evaporator under reduced pressure. The dried extracts were stored in airtight container in refrigerator below 10C. The percentage yield of the each extract shown in

Animals used
Wistar mice (24-30 g) of either sex procured from DRDE, Gwalior (Madhya Pradesh, India) were used for this study. They were maintained under standard conditions (temperature 22 ±20 0 C, relative humidity 60±5% and 12 h light/dark cycle).The animals were housed in sanitized polypropylene cages containing sterile paddy husk as bedding. They had free access to standard pellet diet and water ad libitum. The Institutional Animal Ethics Committee approved the experimental protocol. All the procedures were performed in accordance with Institutional Animal ethics committee constituted as per the direction of the committee for the purpose of control and supervision of experiments on animals (CPCSEA), under ministry of animal welfare division. Government of India, New Delhi, India. Animal ethical clearance for performing the experiments on animals was obtained from the Institutional Animal Ethical Committee (IAEC).

Determination of acute toxicity
(LD 50 ) 11 . The acute toxicity for methanolic and aqueous extracts of flowers was determined in albino mice, maintained under standard conditions.
The animals were fasted overnight prior to the experiment, fixed dose method was adopted as per OECD Guideline No. 423 of CPCSEA.

Preliminary phytochemical screening
Preliminary phytochemical screening was carried out for the presence of corbohydrate, proteins, amino acids, saponins, flavonoids, alkaloids, tannins and glycosides for petroleum ether, ethanolic and aqueous extracts of flowers of Sesbania grandiflora (Linn.). Results are shown in Table No. 2 3.2 Determination of acute toxicity (LD 50 ) As per GHS classification, methanolic and aqueous extracts of Cocculus hirsutus (leaves) and Sesbania grandiflora (flowers) were found to be of class 4 (>300 to 2000 mg/kg, b.w.) and class 5 (>2000 to 5000 mg/kg, b.w.); However, on the basis of mortality in either steps of acute oral toxicity test guidelines 423, different LD50 cut-off dose (in mg/kg, b.w.) were determined. Accordingly, the individual IJBAR (2011) 02 (11) www.ssjournals.com effective lower dose and higher dose were determined (in mg/kg, b.w.) as 1/10 th and 1/5 th of the respective LD50 cut-off dose.
Results have been summarized in Table  No.3 No adverse effects were observed on the respiratory, circulatory, autonomic and central nervous systems and somatomotor activity. Also, the behavioural pattern was found to be normal throughout the study period. Apart from the moribund rats, none showed any sign of abnormal change in skin and fur, eyes and mucous membranes. Tremors and convulsions were also not observed in any of the survivor.