Minor Research Project : Executive Summary

Minor Research Project
Funded By UGC, 2015-2017
F.No.: MS-124/102054/XII/14-15/CRO

Executive Summary

Extraction, Isolation and Identification of Bioactive Compounds from Some Medicinal Plants of Madhya Pradesh : An Alternative Therapy for Health Benefit

Medicinal plants are a source of naturally active compounds used extensively by tribal people worldwide for many ailments. These are the reservoirs of potentially useful chemical compounds that could serve as newer leads and clues for modern drug design. The most important of these bioactive constituents of plants are alkaloids, tannins, flavonoids and phenolic compounds. Correlation between the phyto-constituents and the bioactivity of plant is desirable to know for the synthesis of compounds with specific activities to treat various health ailments and chronic diseases as well.
Many plants respond to environmental stress by producing antioxidants such as polyphenols. These absorb and neutralize free radicals, quenching singlet and triplet oxygen, or inducing expression of peroxides and other toxic metabolites. The medicinal value of plants is related to their phytochemical component and secondary metabolites including: phenolic compounds, flavonoids, alkaloids, tannins and other stress gene response products.
The medicinal plants appear to be rich in metabolites widely used in traditional medicine to combat and cure various ailments. The distribution of metabolite within a plant both between tissues and during growth and development
is rarely uniform..Acacia arabica and Catharanthus roseus plants are rich source of phytochemicals and have great medicinal value and have been used in folk medicines and Ayurveda. Hence this study is an attempt to estimate secondary metabolites from two plants i.e. Acacia arabica (Babool) and Catharanthus roseus(Sadabahar)in different solvents using conventional soxhlet method and modern microwave assisted method and find out their antioxidant and antidiabetic activity.

Silver nanoparticles were also synthesized using aqueous leaf extract of Acacia arabica and Catharanthus roseus and found effective against S.mutans.

The antioxidant activity exhibited by the extracts of Acacia arabica and Catharanthus roseus could justifies the ethnotherapeutic usage of these plant by the traditional healers. The results from the present study indicates that it would be highly economical for the production of potential antioxidant supplements.
The present study can be used in future for the economical formulation of the active chemical ingredients in natural drugs against variety of neurological and inflammatory diseases.