CHAPTER TWO

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

Related Literature

Eleusine indica is a tufted annual grass, prostrate and

spreading, or erect to about 40 cm, depending on density of

vegetation but not usually rooting at the nodes. The root system

is very well developed and strong and the name jongos grass,

used in South Africa, implies that it takes a young ox to uproot

it. On germination, the first leaf, about 1 cm long, tapers very

suddenly to a point and may be pressed quite flat on the soil.

Later leaves are flat to V-shaped, up to 8 mm wide, 15 cm long

and come to a longer, acute, boat-shaped tip. They are glabrous

and usually quite bright, fresh green in colour. The ligule is a

very short membraneous rim up to 1 mm long, sparsely fringed

with short hairs. The sheaths and stem bases are distinctly

flattened. The inflorescence consists of 3-8 racemes, each 5-10

cm long, about 5 mm wide, arranged more-or-less digitately,

though one raceme may be inserted about 1 cm below the others.

The narrow rachis, about 1 mm wide, has two dense rows of almost

glabrous spikelets, each 2.5-3 mm long, 3-5 flowered, the lower

and upper glumes about 1.5 and 3 mm long, respectively, and the

lemmas very similar in both texture and size to the upper glume.
All have a slightly scabrid keel and are acute but not awned.

The reddish-brown to black seeds are oblong, about 1 mm long,

conspicuously ridged.

The Eleusine Indica locally known as “paragis” and is

considered as the “miracle weed” contains antibacterial

characteristic that prevents bacterial manifestation;

antioxidant that breaks food for digestion, that is why it is

also traditionally used as an alternative medicine for ailments

that’s associated with liver and kidney. It passed the cytotoxic

examination that allows it to be used for medical purposes

because it is safe and not harmful to one’s body. These were

just of the few benefits of the miracle weed. The whole weed

paragis is able to help and prevent and cure illnesses.

Eleusine indica or the Indian goosegrass, yard-grass,

goosegrass, wiregrass, or crowfootgrass, is a species of grass

in the family Poaceae. It is a small annual grass distributed

throughout the warmer areas of the world to about 50 degrees

latitude. It is an invasive species in some areas, generally

considered an adventitious species, is native in the tropics and

subtropical regions. Paragis has a broad tolerance to a wide

range of environmental conditions, but its vegetative growth is

significantly reduced during dry seasons. The whole plant,

especially the root, is depurative, diuretic, febrifuge and

laxative, and hence is used for the treatment of influenza,

hypertension, and oliguria and urine retention. The plant has

been the component of “basic remedy” in Vietnamese traditional

medicine and also used for kidney problems in Trinidad and

Tobago. The seed is sometimes used as a famine food and also

used in the treatment of liver complaints. Many herbal products,

have traditional uses that are now being investigated to create

an evidence base that will facilitate their inclusion in general

medical practice. Paragis has probably been repeatedly

introduced in most countries where it is now present, making it

very difficult to determine its history of introduction into new

habitats. In the USA, this species was introduced around the

1800s. In the West Indies, it was first recorded in 1815 in Cuba,

1867 in Martinique, 1876 in US Virgin islands, and 1885 in

Jamaica (US National Herbarium).

Eleusine indica (EI) is a local medicinal plant that

displays antioxidant, antimicrobial and anticancer activities.

The present study is to determine the phytochemical

constituents, cytotoxicity and antiviral activities for both

crude extract and fraction obtained from the plant. The crude

extract contained more secondary metabolites compared to the

hexane fraction as gauged using standard phytochemical tests.

Cytotoxicity screening against Vero cells using MTT assay showed

that the CC50 values for crude extract and hexane fraction were

2.07 and 5.62 mg/ml respectively. The antiviral activity towards

Herpes Simplex Virus type 1 (HSV-1) was determined using plaque

reduction assay. The selective indices (SI = CC50 / EC50) for both

methanol extract and hexane fraction were 12.2 and 6.2

respectively. These results demonstrate that the extract

prepared from E. indica possesses phytochemical compound that

was non cytotoxic to the cell with potential antiviral activity.

With increasing recognition of herbal medicine as an alternative

form of health care, screening of medicinal plants for

biologically active compounds has become an important source of

antibiotic prototypes and cancer-related drugs. Hence, for

selecting crude plant extracts with potential useful

properties, in vitro screening methods have been used for

further in-depth chemical elucidation and pharmacological

investigations.

STUDY ANTIPLASMODIAL AND ANTIDIABETIC ACTIVITIES OF ELEUSINE

INDICA

Eleusine indica was evaluated for its antiplasmodial

potentials in Plasmodium berghei infected mice. The acute

toxicity test of the ethanolic leaf extract was also carried

out. The ethanolic extract of Eleusine indica which had

negligible acute toxicity contains alkaloids, terpenes,

flavonoids, tannins, anthraquinones, saponins and cardiac

glycosides. Thus revealing an enormous medicinal value of this

herb. The extract demonstrated a significant. antiplasmodial

activity in both early and established infections, which can be

attributable to the phytochemical components of the extract like

alkaloids, flavonoids and terpenes which already had been

implicated in antiplasmodial activity of various plants. The

antiplasmodial activity of the leaf extract was incomparable to

that of the standard drug, chloroquine, due to the crude nature

of the extract. Moreso, plants compounds which merely slow down

or temporary arrest the growth of the parasite (plasmodistatic)

as well as those which act as immune stimulant or helping to

alleviate symptoms and reverse some pathological result of

malaria infection are reported to potentiate malaria resistance

and antiplasmodial activity in immune individuals living in

endemic areas

Evaluation of antidiabetic activity of Eleusine indica leaf

extract was also carried out in alloxaninduced diabetic rats.

The extract which showed moderate toxicity was observed to

demonstrate significant antidiabetic activity in alloxan

diabetic rats. Some phytochemical compounds such as

polysaccharides, terpenes and tannins and steroids, have been

implicated in the antidiabetic activities of plants.

Phytochemical studies of the leaf extract revealed the presence

of terpenes, tannins, phlobatannins and anthraquinones. These

constituents may in part be responsible for the observed

significant activity of this extract either singly or in synergy

with one another. Sulphonylureas cause hypoglycemia by

stimulating insulin secretion from the pancreas and these

compounds are potent in mild alloxan induced diabetes and

inactive in intense alloxan induced diabetes whereby nearly all

a cells have been destroyed. The observed reduction in BGL of

the diabetic rats by glibenclamide in this study portrays an in

severe state of diabetes. In this study, continuous treatment

with the leaf extract of Eleusine indica for a period of 2 weeks

caused significant decrease in BGL of treated rats compared to

untreated diabetic rats. Diabetes is characterised by a severe

loss in body weight due to loss or degradation of structural

proteins [19]. This condition was alleviated by the treatment of

the diabetic rats with leaf extract of Eleusine indicaas the

treated rats were healthy and agile at the end of the study.

Some plants’ extracts are reported to exert hypoglycaemic action

by potentiating the insulin effect, either by increasing the

pancreatic secretion of insulin from the cells of islets of

Langerhans or its release from bound insulin. While others act

through extra pancreatic mechanisms by inhibition of hepatic

glucose production or corrections of insulin resistance. This

extract could have utilized one of the above mechanisms in

exerting its ant diabetic effect.

In vitro antimicrobial evaluation of whole-plant extracts of

Eleucine indica

Eleusine indica is widely used in various disease states,

especially in feverish conditions. Based on this preliminary

evaluation and screening of the antiplasmodial activity of the

crude extract and fractions of Eleucine indica, the results

showed that each of them had some degree of antiplasmodial

activity against mice infected with Plasmodium berghei. The

observed antiplasmodial activity may be associated with the

presence of active compounds such as alkaloids and flavonoids.

Alkaloids have been known to exhibit antiplasmodial potentials

by blocking protein synthesis in Plasmodium falciparum[14].

Flavonoids have been reported to chelate with nucleic acid base

pairing of the parasite[15]. It has also been reported that the

leaves of Eleucine indica contain phenolic, possess

antibacterial and antioxidant acivities[5]. The antioxidant

property of this plant may represent yet another mechanism that

contributes to its antiplasmodial activity. These taken

together, depict the wide range of antiparasitic, anti-

inflammatory, and anticarcinogenic potentials of this plant. The

fact that ethyl acetate fraction showed the highest

chemosuppressive effect when compared with others suggests that

the active ingredients of this plant responsible for its

antimalarial activity may be localized here. The antiplasmodial

activities of Eleucine indica extract and its fractions as

observed in this work may, therefore, have resulted from one or

more of these mechanisms. The results of this study justify as

well as confirm its ethnomedicinal use in the treatment of

malaria among the Ibibios of Southern Nigeria. Further study is,

however, necessary to identify the active principles involved

and to elucidate the cellular antiplasmodial mechanisms of

action.