Chemico-pharmacological evaluations of the dwarf elephant ear (Colocasia affinis Schott) plant metabolites and extracts: health benefits from vegetable source

Abstract

<b>Introduction:</b> <i>Colocasia affinis</i> Schott (Family: Araceae), found in the Asian region, is a traditional root vegetable consumed by the locals and well-known as Dwarf Elephant Ear. <b>Methods:</b> For the pharmacological exploration of this root vegetable, four kupchan fractions (i.e. HSF, DCMSF, EASF, and AQSF) from ethanolic extract of <i>C. affinis</i> were employed to <i>in vitro</i> i.e. antioxidant, cytotoxicity, and antimicrobial and <i>in vivo</i> i.e. antidiarrheal and analgesic assays, followed by phytochemical screening and GC-MS protocol. <b>Result and Discussion:</b> In the antioxidant assay, the AQSF showed promising potential with an IC₅₀ value of 29.4 μg/mL and additionally, it exhibited the greatest overall phenolic content, measuring 57.23 mg GAE/gm. of extract among other fractions. The AQSF also revealed promising cytotoxic activity in brine shrimp lethality assay with an LC₅₀ value of 1.36 μg/mL. Both AQSF and EASF exhibited substantial antimicrobial efficacy against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria as well as various fungus species with a remarkable zone of inhibitions compared to standards. Whereas, during both the castor oil-induced antidiarrheal and acetic acid-induced writhing assay, the DCMSF at 400 mg/kg dose exhibited the highest 51.16% reduction of diarrhea and 52.33% reduction of writhing. Phytochemical screening revealed several chemical groups while GC-MS study of different fractions of dwarf elephant ear ethanolic extract revealed 48 different bioactive phytochemicals in total. Several targets such as KAS, DHFR for anti-microbial activities, GLR, URO for antioxidant activities, EGFR, BCL-2 for cytotoxicity, KOR, DOR for antidiarrheal activities and COX-2, TNF-α for analgesic activities are considered for molecular docking against identified phytocompounds and standards along with ADME/T studies to ascertain their safety, efficacy and drug likeliness profiles. <b>Conclusion:</b> To recapitulate, our study revealed that vegetables such as dwarf elephant ear can be considered as a prospective source of therapeutics and drug development besides their nutritive food values.