Evaluation of influence of Butea monosperma floral extract on inflammatory biomarkers

Butea monosperma is a deciduous tree, widely distributed throughout India, Burma, and Ceylon. The present study was intended to investigate the anti-inflammatory effects of Butea monosperma on the induced inflammatory model by evaluating pro-inflammatory biomarkers and their computational analysis. The anti-inflammatory activity may be attributed to the phyto-constituents for inhibitory effects on the two pro-inflammatory mediators (IL-8 and TNF-alpha). For this purpose, rats (n = 48) were equally divided in each group, i.e., 8 each in the negative and positive control and 32 in the experimental group with 8 rats for each dose, i.e., 50, 100, 200, and 400 mg/kg. TNF-alpha and IL-8 were tested by serum enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The ELISA results showed 400 mg/kg dose as the potent anti-inflammatory. The binding sites of target proteins (TNF-alpha and IL-8) were docked with the active compounds (butrin and butein) of Butea monosperma. The butrin (target: TNF-alpha) and butein (target: IL-8) showed -8.4 and -6.0 kcal/mol binding energies, respectively, compared to the (diclofenac) standard drug with -6.8 kcal/mol binding energy. Hence, we concluded that Butea monosperma can be subjected to as a useful anti-inflammatory drug.