ABSTRACT
Arthropod-borne diseases, such as malaria and dengue fever, have frequently beset five countries(Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand) in the tropical rainy Lancang-Mekong region, which pose a huge threat to social production and daily life. As a resort to such diseases, chemical drugs risk the resistance in plasmodium, non-availability for dengue virus, and pollution to the environment. Traditional medicinal plants have the multi-component, multi-target, and multi-pathway characteristics, which are of great potential in drug development. Exploring potential medicinals for arthropod-borne diseases from traditional medicinal plants has become a hot spot. This study summarized the epidemiological background of arthropod-borne diseases in the Lancang-Mekong region and screened effective herbs from the 350 medicinal plants recorded in CHINA-ASEAN Traditional Medicine. Based on CNKI, VIP, and PubMed, the plants for malaria and dengue fever and those for killing and repelling mosquitoes were respectively sorted out. Their pharmacological effects and mechanisms were reviewed and the material basis was analyzed. The result is expected to serve as a reference for efficient utilization of medicinal resources, development of effective and safe drugs for malaria and dengue fever, and the further cooperation between China and the other five countries in the Lancang-Mekong region.
Subject(s)
Animals , Culicidae , Malaria , Plants, Medicinal , Plasmodium , ThailandABSTRACT
The worldwide botanical and medicinal culture diversity are astonishing and constitute a Pierian spring for innovative drug R&D. Here, the latest awareness and the perspectives of pharmacophylogeny and pharmacophylogenomics, as well as their expanding utility in botanical drug R&D, are systematically summarized and highlighted. Chemotaxonomy is based on the fact that closely related plants contain the same or similar chemical profiles. Correspondingly, it is better to combine morphological characters, DNA markers and chemical markers in the inference of medicinal plant phylogeny. Medicinal plants within the same phylogenetic groups may have the same or similar therapeutic effects, thus forming the core of pharmacophylogeny. Here we systematically review and comment on the versatile applications of pharmacophylogeny in (1) looking for domestic resources of imported drugs, (2) expanding medicinal plant resources, (3) quality control, identification and expansion of herbal medicines, (4) predicting the chemical constituents or active ingredients of herbal medicine and assisting in the identification and determination of chemical constituents, (5) the search for new drugs sorting out, and (6) summarizing and improving herbal medicine experiences, etc. Such studies should be enhanced within the context of deeper investigations of molecular biology and genomics of traditional medicinal plants, phytometabolites and metabolomics, and ethnomedicine-based pharmacological activity, thus enabling the sustainable conservation and utilization of traditional medicinal resources.
ABSTRACT
Multidrug resistance remains a serious clinical problem in the successful therapy of malignant diseases. It occurs in cultured tumor cell lines, as well as in human cancers. Therefore, it is critical to develop novel anticancer drugs with multidrug-resistance modulating potential to increase the survival rate of leukemia patients. Plant-derived natural products have been used for the treatment of various diseases for thousands of years. This review summarizes the anticancer and multidrug-resistance reversing properties of the extracts and bioactive compounds from traditional medicinal plants in different leukemia cell lines. Further mechanistic studies will pave the road to establish the anticancer potential of plant-derived natural compounds.
Subject(s)
Humans , Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic , Pharmacology , Therapeutic Uses , Cell Line, Tumor , Drug Resistance, Multiple , Leukemia , Drug Therapy , Magnoliopsida , Chemistry , Phytotherapy , Plant Extracts , Pharmacology , Therapeutic Uses , Plants, Medicinal , ChemistryABSTRACT
To find the potentiality of the following medicinal plants for their anti dermatophytic property. Agar and broth dilution methods, Leaf extracts of Cassia occidentalis, Cassia tora, Lawsonia inermis, Xanthium strumarium and Caesalpinia bonducella with various solvents viz., methanol, alcohol, acetone, acetone, petroleum ether, chloroform and ethyl acetate were evaluated for antidermatophytic activity against human pathogenic fungi. In agar and broth dilution methods, all extracts showed antifungal activity even at minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) and minimum fungicidal concentrations (MFCs). The most biologically active extract was found to be ethyl acetate leaf extract of C. bonducella, which inhibited all test fungi with time and dose dependent activity. This plant extract retarded the growth of all the organisms at 10000 μg/ml up to 30 days and beyond. It is further suggested for detail investigation of active constituents of the plants used in the present.