Ibn Sina (Avicenna) argued that the use of snake meat prolongs life, strengthens forces, keep the sharp senses and youthfulness. A variety of remedies from snakes were used in Uzbekistan traditional medicine for centuries for the treatment of various diseases. And now there is an opinion that bouillon and dried meat of a snake, called kulvor-ilon, are a remedy for many ailments. A traditional medicine Eryxin represents an aqueous hydrolysate prepared from the biomass of sand boa snakes. It contains short-chain organic acids, aminoacids, phospholipids, inorganic salts. It was shown, that Eryxin among other activities has been effective for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis [1].
We assessed the chondroprotective potential of Eryxin by examining its effects on the activities of hyaluronidase. Hyaluronidase activity was assayed by a modified version of Morgan-Elson method [2]. Percent of inhibition was calculated as follows:
Inhibition (%)=[(A–B)–(C–D)]/(A–B) × 100, where A is the control absorbance; B is the control blank absorbance; C is the sample absorbance; and D is the sample blank absorbance. IC50 was calculated using the mean of three observations from each of the five concentrations for all the samples. Alflutop (BIOTEHNOS S.A, Romania) was used as positive control. The IC50 values for Eryxin were 3.4 – 9.21 mg/ml, while IC50 values for Alflutop was 4.0 mg/ml.
In the present study, we evaluated the antihyaluronidase activity of Eryxin for the first time. The observed potent activity could be considered as one of mechanisms of anti-arthritis effects of Eryxin.
[1] Ubaidullaev A.M., Uzakova G.T., Akbarov S.V.. Med. Zh. Uzbek., 1999, 6, 88 – 90.
[2] Samee H., Li Z.X., Lin H. et al.. J. Zhejiang University-SCIENCE B, 2009, 10, 147 – 153
