Exploring the pharmacological potential of Commelina paludosa Blume.: an In vitro and in vivo approach

Commmelina paludosa Blume, a member of the commelinaceae family is locally known as Bat boitta shak in Bangladesh. It has a several ecological, ethnomedicinal and potential pharmacological uses. The present study sought to ascertain the antimicrobial, cytotoxic and antidiarrheal activities of crude methanolic extracts and various solvent fractions (n-hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate, and aqueous) derived from C. paludosa leaf to scientifically validate its traditional uses and identify its therapeutic potential. Antimicrobial activity was evaluated via the disc diffusion method, where all the plant samples showed mild to moderate antimicrobial activity against test microorganisms with the zone of inhibition (mm) ranging from 8.0-13.0 mm against the test microbial species compared to the standard kanamycin (30 μg/disc). During cytotoxicity test, the n-hexane fraction showed the highest cytotoxicity with an LC50 = 4.0 μg /ml followed by the chloroform fraction LC50 = 9.20 μg/ml, indicating the presence of potent cytotoxic compounds in the extract C. paludosa. The leaf extracts of C. paludosa demonstrated a time-dependent reduction in castor oil induced diarrhea in mice. Notably, the extract at the dose of 400mg/kg exhibited the highest 76.9% percentage of diarrhea reduction among the tested extracts, closely approaching the efficacy of the standard drug loperamide hydrochloride. Based on the activities, it appears that the plant has a lot of pharmacologically active compounds that could be used to make natural medicines.