Planta Med 2014; 80 - PP24
DOI: 10.1055/s-0034-1382719

Gastroprotective and gut motility enhancing activities of sorrel

HJ Kim 1, JY Bae 1, WS Park 1, EJ Jeong 2, HJ Kim 3, MJ Ahn 1
  • 1College of Pharmacy and Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju 660 – 701, Korea
  • 2Department of Agronomy & Medicinal Plant Resources, Gyeongnam National University of Science and Technology, JinjuRepublic of Korea
  • 3Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, Republic of Korea

Sorrel (Rumex acetosa) is a perennial herb, widely distributed all over the eastern Asia. Although hot water extract of sorrel has been used to treat gastritis or gastric ulcer as a folk medicine, no scientific report exists for the use of this plant against gastric ulcer. Hence, the present study was undertaken to assess the antiulcer activity of 70% ethanol extract obtained from R. acetosa using HCl/ethanol-induced gastric ulcer model in mice. As a result, the administration of the extracts significantly reduced the gastric ulcer lesion to 9.1% compared with control group at the dose of 100 mg/kg. Meanwhile, the extracts showed potent DPPH radical scavenging activity, and decreased NO production in a murine macrophage cell line, RAW 264.7 in a dose-dependent manner without affecting the cell viability. The effect of sorrel on gut motility was also examined, and it was found that the ethanolic extract increased the gastrointestinal movement. In conclusion, R. acetosa could be a useful material for the case of gastric ulcer and functional dyspepsia. Effects of the characteristic compounds for sorrel, emodine, chrysophanol, physcion and physcion-8-glucoside on gastrointestinal disorder would be also discussed.

Acknowledgements: This research was financially supported by the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MOTIE), Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT) through the Inter-ER Cooperation Projects (Grant # A004500005)