ABSTRACT

Sickle cell disease is a group of diseases inherited through the gene and it affects the haemoglobin in the red blood cell. This study investigated the aqueous methanol root bark extract of Musanga cecropioides for possible in vitro anti-sickling effects and also determined the effect of Musanga cecropioides root bark extract on the solubility, polymerization, sickling inhibition, sickling Reversal, osmotic fragility rate of sickle cell haemoglobin and to be compared with para amino benzoic acid. Sickle cell blood was collected from sickle cell disease patients with subsequent addition of 2% sodium metabisulphite to cause more sickling. Varying concentrations ofthe Musanga cecropioides root bark extracts of (50% and 25%) were added to the pre-treated blood for these in vitro assays. The results showed that the extract of Musanga cecropioides root bark extract significantly (P < 0.05) inhibited sickling, polymerization, increase solubility, increase fe2+/fe3+ etc at all concentrations with the highest percentage inhibition of 80± 17.36, reversed sickled erythrocytes at all concentrations with the highest percent- age reversal of 83.3 ± 5.8 and significantly (P < 0.05) inhibited polymerisation at all concentrations used in comparison to the parallel control. The extract of Musanga cecropioides root bark extract significantly (P < 0.05) increased the solubility of sickle haemoglobin at 50% and 25% concentrations, increased Fe2+/Fe3+ ratio from 12.32 (control) to 55.63 (50% concentration). Therefore, aqueous methanol extract of Musanga cecropioides root bark has an anti-sickling properties as compared with para amino benzoic acid.