Background: As an important traditional Tibetan (veterinary) medicine, the flowers of Meconopsis punicea (family\nPapaveraceae) have been used to treat pain, fever, cough, inflammation, liver heat and lung heat of humans and\nanimals by local people for thousands of years. In this paper, we aimed to investigate the antinociceptive and\nanti-tussive activities of the ethanol extract of M. punicea (EEM).\nMethods: Firstly, HPLC was used to analyze the main constituents of the ethanol extract of M. punicea. In animal\nexperiments, the acetic acid-induced writhing response test, hot plate test, barbiturate-induced sleeping time and\nformalin tests were used to evaluate the antinociceptive activity. Then, ammonia-induced coughing and sulfur\ndioxide-induced coughing tests in mice as well as the phenol red secretion in trachea test were used to investigate the\nanti-tussive activity of the extract. Finally, an acute toxicity study was carried out.\nResults: The results showed that alkaloids and flavonoids were the main compounds in the ethanol extract of M.\npunicea flowers. The extract at 125, 250 and 500 mg/kg had good antinociceptive and anti-tussive activities in mice\nwith a dose-dependent manner.\nConclusions: These findings suggested that EEM has significant bioactivities, and the active components of M. punicea\nshould be studied further.
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