Development of depigmentation agents from the active ingredients of Morus alba and Lagenaria siceraria using guinea pig as model with reference to computational molecular modelling

Abstract

Melanin is the pigment responsible to impart color to the skin, hairs and eyes as well as protects the skin from harmful UV radiation. But, accumulation of excess melanin in skin causes hyperpigmentation. Nowadays, various modalities for the treatment of hyperpigmentation are available but none of them are entirely satisfactory, as their long term use and/or exposure causes several side effects. Hence, the use of herbs and their ingredients for the treatment of hyperpigmentaion is gaining much interest as they are found to be safer and milder than synthetic products. Morus alba and Lagenaria siceraria have been widely used in many traditional systems of medicines as they contain a reservoir of bioactive compounds. newlineDespite this, to the best of our knowledge there is no report in the literature indicating both the plants Morus alba and Lagenaria siceraria to have any effect as skin lightening agents. There are no studies at all on the effects of extracts of M.alba and L.siceraria on in vivo melanocyte model and in silico tyrosinase model in order to find out the efficacy of both the plants as skin lightening agents. Therefore, the present study was undertaken keeping the view of the above lacunae in the literature and for the first time, the mammalian melanocyte model (guinea pigs) has been studied to understand the mechanism of melanogenesis inhibition and in silico molecular docking studies to understand the possible binding of active compounds of M.alba and L.siceraria with tyrosinase against problem associated with several hyper pigmentary anomalies. newline The results of the present study showed that both the creams of partially purified extracts of M.alba and L.siceraria significantly inhibit the activity of tyrosinase, decreased melanin content as well as decreased tyrosinase expression which was evaluated using Fontana Masson staining, tyrosinase inhibition assay, melanin content assay and Western blot analysis. The data of the present study led us to propose that formulated creams of M.alba and L. siceraria incr