Oxygen scavenging, anti-inflammatory, and antiglycation activity of pomegranate flavonoids (Punica granum) against streptozotocin toxicity induced diabetic nephropathy in rats.

Bioactive natural products are essential components for drug development. Protein glycation in diabetic subjects leads to diabetic complications as nephropathy and neuropathy. We investigated the impact of pomegranate hexane extract (PHE) as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antiglycation in diabetic rats. Gas chromatography/mass spectrum (GC/MS) analysis of PHE revealed presence of resorcinol, catechol, tau-cadinol, metacetamol, scopoletin, phytol, and phenol, 3-pentadecyl as the most active ingredients that related to biological activity. Results obtained showed that, PHE increased serum aldose reductase and total antioxidant activity compared with untreated diabetic rats (p < 0.001). In addition, PHE exert antioxidant by enhancing, catalase and SOD (p < 0.001) and decreased MDA (p < 0.001), anti-inflammatory by inhibition production of 1 β (IL-1β), tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α) (p < 0.001), and AGEs (p < 0.001) against nephropathy in diabetic rats compared with untreated group. It was concluded that, pomegranate is promising in development a functional biomolecule in treatment and protection against diabetic complications as nephropathy. More study required to investigate the molecular action of these molecules.