Central and peripheral analgesic and anti-inflammatory effect of plumbagin and resveratrol: A preclinical study

Millions of people are suffering from pain worldwide and current therapy provides its symptomatic relief with experience of some adverse effects. The plant nathoquinone-Plumbagin (PL) obtained from plumbago plants and a phytolexin-Resveratrol (RSV) from the skin of berries and grapes being a pleiotropic phytoconstituents have therapeutic potential to reduce experimentally induced pain and inflammation. We designed this preclinical study to evaluate the analgesic and anti-inflammatory effect of PL and RSV.

Neuropathic pain (NP) was induced using chronic constriction injury (CCI) of sciatic nerve model followed by its assessment by thermal, mechanical and cold allodynia method. While, sub-plantar injection of 50μL 2.5% formalin induced nociception as well as inflammation. Evaluation of nociception and inflammation was done using nociceptive scoring and paw volume measurement using plethysmometer. NP and formalin induced animals were subjected for PL and RSV treatment following its evaluation. In vitro, and in-silico docking studies using Swiss-Dock web server were performed to correlate the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant potential.

The CCI and formalin induced pain and inflammation were confirmed by parametric assessment. In provoked rats, PL 2mg/kg and RSV 50mg/kg alone, while RSV (25mg/kg) and PL (1 mg/kg) in combination had synergistic analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects with agreeable in-silico interaction with the oxidative parameters.

PL and RSV through exhibit strong analgesic effect, PL-RSV combination was found to be safe with synergistic effects owing to their multi-target interactions. Future study may be designed to investigate the molecular and clinical robustness.