2. Materials and methods
2.1. Animals
Twelve-week-old female (body weights around 175–200 gm)
and male (body weights around 225–250 gm) albino rats of Wistar
strain were used for the present study. The rats were housed singly
in separate standard cages and maintained under standard laboratory
conditions (temperature 24–28 ◦C, relative humidity 60–70%,
12 h light–dark cycle) with free access to solid pellet diet andwater
ad libitum throughout the study. The study was approved by Institutional
Ethical Committee (IAEC No. 01/031/05). Animals were
maintained according to the guidelines of the Canadian Council for
Experimental Animal Care and the Laboratory Animal Science Association
of India. Animals were randomly divided into five groups
with six animals per group. Group I represented the control animal,
animals in Groups II, III and IV were given oral suspension
of MP extract for 45 days at 18:00 h, at doses of 150, 200 and
250 mg/kg, respectively, and Group V rats received Sildenafil citrate
(SC) (5 mg/kg body weight) reference drug, which served as a
positive control. Dosage of MP was selected according to Rathi et
al. (2002) with ±50mg to confirm effective concentration.