Studies on Anticholinesterase and Antioxidant Effects of Samples from Colchicum L. Genus of Turkish Origin
 Duygu SEVIM*°, Fatma Sezer SENOL*, Esin BUDAKOGLU*, Ilkay ERDOGAN ORHAN*, Bilge SENER*, Erdal KAYA**
 * Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey
 ** Atatürk Central Horticultural Research Institute, Yalova, Turkey

 ° Corresponding Author E-mail: duygusvm@gmail.com

Summary

Colchicum L. (Liliaceae) species known as “Acicigdem” in Turkish, are an old world genus of about 99 species mainly distributed in the Mediterranean region. In Turkey, there are about 49 taxon along with new species collected from 81 populations1. The bulbs and seeds have medicinal value and the compound colchicine is prepared from them2. Continuing our studies on the screening of cholinesterase inhibitory activity of geophytes, the methanol extracts prepared from the bulbs and seeds of Colchicum samples have been investigated for their cholinesterase inhibitory activity against acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BChE), the enzymes linked to Alzheimer’s disease, at 200 mg mL-1 using ELISA microplate reader in this study. Antioxidant activity of the extracts has also been measured by radical scavenging activity test against 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) at 2000 mg mL-1. Among all tested samples, the methanol extract of C. variegatum has been found as moderate activity (35.50 ±2.26%) against AChE, most of the extracts have no activity. However, two extracts of C. crocifolium (82.73 ±1.88%) and C. variegatum (67.71 ±2.79%) have shown significan activities against BChE. On the other hand, all of the extracts displayed low profile of DPPH scavenging effect below 40%.

Key Words :
Colchicum, Acetylcholinesterase, Butyrylcholinesterase, Antioxidant, Activity.