**3.4. Anti-inflammatory properties of** *Opuntia elatior* **extract**

Inflammation in the body acts as a defense mechanism. When a foreign substance enters in the body, it causes infection and injury. To protect our body from this, the infected area swells. The purpose of inflammation is to localize and eliminate the foreign substances so that the body can heal itself. Inflammation prevents excess blood flow to rich the site of damage.

The anti-inflammatory activity of *Opuntia elatior* was studied using inhibition of protein denaturation method. Protein denaturation means the loss of biological properties of protein molecules. Denaturation of proteins is responsible for the cause of inflammation and its conditions like rheumatoid, arthritis, diabetes, cancer, and so on. Hence, prevention of protein denaturation may also help in preventing inflammatory conditions.

As a part of the investigation on the mechanism of the anti-inflammation activity, the ability of protein denaturation in different fruit extracts with different solvents was studied. The maximum percentage of inhibition of 37.49% was observed from methanol extract followed by distilled water at 34.15% and then hexane at 30.38%. All the solvent extract inhibited the albumin denaturation. The methanol extract shows the highest inhibition and distilled water extract shows the lowest inhibition. Diclofen, a standard anti-inflammatory drug, showed the maximum inhibition of 63.33%.

Several anti-inflammatory drugs have shown dose-dependent ability to inhibit protein denaturation. *Opuntia* fruit has more than 50% of protein denaturation inhibition properties present in anti-inflammation drugs. This shows that *Opuntia* can be used as a natural source of anti-inflammatory activities. The ability of *Opuntia elatior* extract to bring down denaturation of protein is a contributing factor for its anti-inflammatory activity. The data of this study suggest that *Opuntia elatior* shows significant anti-inflammatory activity with the tested in vitro methods. The data collected by protein denaturation method for inflammation are given in **Figure 5**.
