Studies on phytochemical, mineral content, in vitro anti-urolithiatic and anti-diabetic activities of horse gram flour extracts and its biosynthesized Ag nanoparticles

The current study aims to examine the use of horse gram flour and its extracts as a low-cost source of mineral content with anti-urolithiatic, anti-diabetic properties and to compare the biological activities with its biosynthesized AgNPs. The secondary metabolites and the macro and micronutrients present in the selected herbal product, reinforces the utility of the horse gram as a promising herbal. Present investigation reveals that the biomass chosen for the study as a cheap natural source with valuable mineral content of calcium (43.06 mg/L), followed by potassium (13.78 mg/L) and sodium (6.94 mg/L). The grain's water extracts found to contain carbohydrate as dominating component with the value of (65.10 ± 0.95 mg g−1 equivalent). Whereas both water and ethanol extract contain TPC (phenol) viz; 60.13 ± 2.45 mg g−1, 68.24 ± 1.33 mg g−1, TTC (terpenoids)53.21 ± 1.4 mg g−1,51.27 ± 2.65 mg g−1, followed by TSC (sterol)as 45.58 ± 1.7 mg g−1, 57.27 ± 1.65 mg g−1 in moderate amounts respectively. The aqueous extract of Horse gram was used for the synthesis the AgNPs through a straightforward green approach and characterized by FESEM, TEM, zeta potential, X-ray diffraction, UV spectroscopy and particle size measurement. These studies demonstrate the production of AgNPs with an average particle size of 30 nm–60 nm. Investigation on anti-urolithiatic property with aqueous extract, (HGW), ethanol extract (HGE) and its biosynthesized Ag nanoparticles (HG-Ag) reveal that, among the three samples chosen, the biosynthesized Ag nanoparticles possess the best inhibiting activity. The disintegration of crystals in gel medium further validated the extracts and Ag nanoparticles crystal growth inhibitory activity, at concentrations of 2% for extracts and 200 μg/ml for AgNPs. Further, it is also found that the HG-Ag nanoparticle exhibit good anti-diabetic activity (75.36%) than the other two extracts (HGW Extract-67.18% & HGE Extract-44.29%). Thus, the seed flour extracts and its AgNps demonstrated to be a promising natural herbal product with potential mineral content, antidiabetic and anti-urolithiatic activities which could be a used as a value-added product in the dietary formulations.