Abstract

Vasicine is a pyrralazoquinazoline monobasic alkaloid obtained from the plant Adhatoda zeylanica. In the current experiment, we have made an attempt to determine the sites of absorption for the bioactive component vasicine from the various segments of small intestine (duodenum, jejunum and ileum) and colon. Everted intestinal sac method was used to assess the in vitro absorption of vasicine. The absorption of standard vasicine, vasicine from methanol and ethanol extracts of vasaka from the small intestine of rats was studied using the Doluisio technique. Maximum absorption of 87.3±5.256% of vasicine was observed in the duodenal region, whilst the colon showed the minimum absorption of 42.6±7.314%. The jejunum and ileum showed 77.2±3.415% and 46.9±3.271% absorption of vasicine respectively. The luminal disappearance of vasicine by Doluisio technique was determined from the standard curve. Absorption of vasicine was found to be better from the ethanol extract than from the methanol extract. Standard vasicine has revealed steady absorption as evidenced by a typical sigmoidal curve. The absorption rate was found to be of the first order for the tested samples.