Stem Bark Essay

A simple report for the isolation of swertiamarin, a secoiridoid glycoside, from the whole plant of Enicostemma littorale Blume was reported [ref]. Methanol extract of defatted plant material when treated with diethyl ether resulted in a precipitate containing swertiamarin as one of the major component. Swertiamarin was separated from this precipitate by column chromatography over silica gel by pooling various aliquots. The identity of the compound isolated was confirmed through ultraviolet (UV) and co-chromatography with a reference standard on thin-layer chromatography (TLC). The purity of the compound was confirmed from the UV absorption spectrum and high performance

Traditionally, the root of A. racemosus has been widely used to increase fertility and libido, cures inflammation of sexual organs, enhances ovulation, prepares the womb for conception and prevents miscarriages (Kalia et al., 2003; Naik, 1988; Dwivedi & Tewari, 1991). Although, A. racemosus roots also known to possess estrogenic property (Tewari et al., 1968), but it has also been documented that at higher doses of A. racemosus, it maintains the balance between the endogenous female sex hormones (Sharma and Bhatnagar, 2011). Moreover, the ethno medical use of A. racemosus root as an anticonvulsant has been experimentally validated in our laboratory (unpublished data) as well as by other researchers too (references). The available literature reveals that the plant has not been explored with respect to its therapeutic potential as an anticonvulsant in catamenial epilepsy. But nowadays the virtual screening of the phytochemicals is believed to be a major tool for drug discovery beyond their ethnic use. Hence, an effort has been made to explore the pharmacological activities of Asparagus racemosus root using Prediction of Activity Spectra for Substances (PASS) and Pharmaexpert. In line with in our current study, a PASS based analysis (Table 1 & 2) revealed the presence of different bioactive phytoconstituents which might be responsible as an anticonvulsant with the most significant possibility of getting effective in the management of catamenial

In vitro enzyme-inhibitory assay-guided fractionation of Polygonum hyrcanicum extract resulted in the purification of 13 phenolic compounds as the active constituents. Based on NMR data, the purified compounds of Polygonum hyrcanicum were identified as quercetin (1) [17], myricetin (2) [17], N-trans-caffeoyl-tyramine (3) [18], quercetin 3-O-α-L-(3",5"-diacetyl-arabinofuranoside) (4) [19], quercetin 3-O-α-L-(3"-acetyl-arabinofuranoside) (5) [20], myricetin 3-O-α-L-(3",5"-diacetyl-arabinofuranoside) (6) [21], (+) catechin (7) [22], (-) gallocatechin (8) [22], myricetin 3-O-β-D-galactopyranoside (9) [23], myricetin 3-O-α-L-rhamnopyranoside (myricitrin) (10) [23], quercetin 3-O-β-D-galactopyranoside (11) [24], myricetin 3-O-α-L-arabinofuranoside

Malaria is a life threatening disease that has been around for centuries. Throughout history, medicinal properties in plants have been used by many civilizations. Evidence of this has been documented in the China Academy of Chinese Medicinal Sciences in the Handbook for Prescriptions for Emergencies by Ge Hong written circa 284-346 CE (Tu, 2011). In this handbook there is a detailed explanation on how to prepare the qinghaosu as a medicinal remedy for malaria. It should come as no surprise that the plant Artemisia annua L. has medicinal qualities as many of the medications on the market today are plant based. Aspirin is derived from the bark of salix (willow), throat lozenges are derived from the leaves of mentha (mint), therefore it is no surprise that antimalarial medications are also plant based (Plant Medicines, 2006).

Small organic molecules derived naturally from microbes and plants have provided for over 40 years a number of useful cancer chemotherapeutic drugs. (20) A variety of natural products have been discovered over the last decade to inhibit human cancer cell proliferation. These compounds represent a whole new range of structurally diverse structures for anticancer drug discovery. I will focus on three natural products derived from plants that have anti-cancer effects. The natural products are as follows: Currcumin, thymoquinone and genistein.

Herbal medicines are great alternative for commercially manufactured medicines available in the market. The major reason why herbal medicine differ from modern medicine is because they are produced with 100% natural content. Therefore the plant extract has all the medicinal values that are as effective as modern medicine. Commercially prepared drugs show results quickly but have numerous side effects. However herbal medicines don’t show any side

Another alternative, strategy utilized in identification of targets for phytochemical involves “the screening of query compounds against pharmacophore models of PDB ligands”. This strategy is much faster than molecular docking in filtering out compounds that “are not direct mimics of the ligands from which the pharmacophore model is generated”. This method has been used first time for target fishing for plant constituents of Ruta graveolens against a database containing 2208 pharmacophore models. In this study, screening of sixteen bioactive principles of

Herbal-based remedies are used in traditional medicine to treat and prevent many diseases including cancer. Triterpenoids have promising anticancer activities. Triterpenoids have been reported to display anticancer activities against a myriad type cancer, without any cytotoxic effect in normal cells [17-21]. They also demonstrate antitumor efficacy in animal models of cancer [18, 21]

It also antibacterial (Velikova et al., 2000), antifungal (Cotoras et al., 2004), antileishmanial (Santos et al., 2013), antiplasmodial (Batista et al., 2013), antisyphiliticus (Pereira et al., 2012), and anticariogenic (de Andrade et al., 2011) activities. It has also been isolated from other herbs such as Mikania glomerata (Vilegas et al., 1997), Copaifera langsdorffii (Costa-Lotufo et al., 2002), Sphagneticola trilobata (Mizokami et al., 2012), Pseudognaphalium vira vira (Cotoras et al., 2004), and several Annonaceae families (Cavalcanti et al., 2010; Guillope et al., 2011; Okoye et al., 2013; Oliveira et al., 2002). In spite of these therapeutic uses, kaurenoic acid had to be used carefully, because of its toxic effect. Costa-Lotufo et al. (2002) demonstrated its cytotoxic and embryotoxic effect by observing the embryonic cell of sea urchins and the hemolysis of mouse and human erythrocytes. Cavalcanti et al. (2010) identified its genotoxic and mutagenic effect in human leukocytes, yeast, and mice tissue cells.

Punarnava (Boerhaavia diffusa L.) is a promising drug to rejuvenate new cells in body. It is well known in Ayurvedic medicine and locally called Tambadivasu. Superficially it is similar to other species of Boerhaavia and species of Trianthema and Sesuvium. Due to the minute morphological differences, above plants are erroneously used in medicine as Punarnava, and at times on purpose as an adulterant. Therefore, it is necessary to highlight the anatomical features of Punarnava for proper identification of the medicinal plant species for local people and for scientific research. Due to the ambiguity in local names and similar apparent appearance, market samples of Punarnava are often adulterated with various species of Trianthema and Sesuvium. These adulterated samples contain neither the Punarnavine alkaloid, nor does it possess anisocytic stomata. Comparative study of stem anatomy showed two main characteristic differences. First, plenty of starch grains can be seen in both the ground tissues and xylem parenchyma of Punarnava which is not observed in species of Trianthema, and second, the phloem around the xylem of Punarnava root has semi-circular or

Rhizoma et Radix Notoperygii (Qianghuo in Chinese also name as Qiang Qing and Tui Feng Shi Zhe (Yang, A. (nd)) is a well-known traditional Chinese medicine providing anti-rheumatic and pain-relieving herb in treating colds, rheumatism and headache (Yaping, W. & Huang, L.-F. 2015; Yang, A. nd; Namba,T., Gu, Z.-M., Zhou,G.-C., Wang,T.-Z.,Huo,M. and Komatsu,K.1995). Commercial names according to their appearance are “Chuan- qiang, Xi-qiang, Can-qiang, Zhu-jie-qiang, Da-tou qiang and Taio-qiang” (Yang, A. nd; Namba,T., Gu, Z.-M., Zhou,G.-C., Wang,T.-Z.,Huo,M. and Komatsu,K.1995). Qiang huo is first mentioned in shen-nong-ben-cao-jing as alternative name as duo huo (Namba,T., Gu, Z.-M., Zhou,G.-C., Wang,T.-Z.,Huo,M. and Komatsu,K.1995). Till

Other than flavoring, aroma and preservatives, spices have many therapeutic properties such as antimicrobial, antioxidant, chemopreventive and antifungal. The antimicrobial properties of spices have led to the development of plant-origin antibiotics so as to overcome the antibiotic resistant problems. In addition, the anticancer, antioxidative and anti-inflammatory properties of spice extracts have help

The review showed that from 122 compounds recognized in the study, 80% of the compounds were castoff for the same (or related) ethnobotanical determinations. Information grounded on long-term use of plants by humans (ethnomedicine) likely helps to isolate harmless active compounds from plants than isolating vigorous compounds from plants with no history of human use (Fabricant and Farnsworth, 2001). Thus in its place of relying

Spermacoce hispida L. is one of the important medicinal plants used in traditional systems of medicine. It is observed that, several times it is difficult to differentiate the plant from the other allied species from the same genus, Spermacoce, especially, when they are in drug form. Therefore, the present study aims to document the differences in the pharmacognostic characters, preliminary phytochemical analysis and polyphenolic contents from the leaves of four species belonging to the genus Spermacoce, viz. S. hispida L., S. mauritiana O. Gideon, S. stricta L. and S. ocymoides Burm. Transverse section passing through the midrib with lamina on either sides, epidermal characters, leaf constants, organoleptic characters, physicochemical analysis, extractive values and preliminary phytochemical analysis were carried out for all these species. Total Phenolic Content (TPC) by Folin-Ciocalteu method and Total Flavonoids (TF) by AlCl3 method were also estimated from the leaves of all these species. The results indicated that S. hispida can be clearly differentiated from the other selected species on the basis of size and number of epidermal cells, size of trichomes, leaf constants, physicochemical analysis and extractive values. However, it is also found that S. hispida possess TPC at 6.88±0.34 mg CAE/g and 9.17±0.46 mg TAE/g. TF was at 5.98±0.30 mg QE/g. The study will provide information with respect to identification and differentiation selected species of genus Spermacoce.

The present study was conducted to identify the phytochemical constituents also their biological role and antibacterial activity in L. inermis leaves.