AccScience Publishing / IMO / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/IMO025260028
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Antidiarrheal activity assessment of Operculina turpethum stem extract and in silico analysis of its compounds

Md. Abdullah Al Fahad1* ,  Md. Fahim Hasan1 ,  Md. Arman Islam1 ,  Nusrat Jahan1 ,  Md. Iqbal Ahmed1*
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1 Pharmacy Discipline, Khulna University, Khulna, Bangladesh
IMO, 025260028 https://doi.org/10.36922/IMO025260028
Received: 25 June 2025 | Revised: 7 August 2025 | Accepted: 13 August 2025 | Published online: 22 September 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Operculina turpethum is widely known for its use in traditional treatment practices to heal several diseases, such as bronchitis, pectoralgia, arthralgia, diarrhea, obesity, helminthiasis, gastropathy, ascites, sporadic fever, leucoderma, inflammation, pruritis, ulcers, erysipelas, tumors, jaundice, hemorrhoids, and ophthalmia. In this study, the antidiarrheal potential of the ethanolic extract of O. turpethum stem was assessed in an animal model, and molecular docking of previously reported stem-derived compounds was performed to determine the possible mechanism of action. The in vivo antidiarrheal effect was assessed using a castor oil-induced mouse model. In silico molecular docking analysis was performed using the ‘Vina Wizard’ program in PyRx 0.8. The stem extracts at 250 and 500 mg/kg produced significant, dose-dependent antidiarrheal activity. Among the four previously isolated compounds, three (22,23-dihydro-α-spinosterol-ß-D-glucoside, paprazine, and sitogluside) showed satisfactory binding affinity against the target M3 muscarinic acetylcholine receptor, comparable to the reference standard drug loperamide. These findings suggest that the O. turpethum stem has significant potential to prevent diarrhea that warrants further phytochemical, pharmacological, and mechanistic investigations.

Graphical abstract
Keywords
Anti-diarrheal
Plant extract
Molecular docking
ADME
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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Innovative Medicines & Omics, Electronic ISSN: 3060-8740 Print ISSN: 3060-8910, Published by AccScience Publishing
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