Micropropagation and conservation of selected endangered anticancer medicinal plants from the Western Ghats of India

Globally, cancer is a constant battle which severely affects the human population. The major limitations of the anticancer drugs are the deleterious side effects on the quality of life. Plants play a vital role in curing many diseases with minimal or no side effects. Phytocompounds derived from various medicinal plants serve as the best source of drugs to treat cancer. The global demand for phytomedicines is mostly reached by the medicinal herbs from the tropical nations of the world even though many plant species are threatened with extinction. India is one of the mega diverse countries of the world due to its ecological habitats, latitudinal variation, and diverse climatic range. Western Ghats of India is one of the most important depositories of endemic herbs. It is found along the stretch of south western part of India and constitutes rain forest with more than 4000 diverse medicinal plant species. In recent times, many of these therapeutically valued herbs have become endangered and are being included under the red-listed plant category in this region. Due to a sharp rise in the demand for plant-based products, this rich collection is diminishing at an alarming rate that eventually triggered dangerous to biodiversity. Thus, conservation of the endangered medicinal plants has become a matter of importance. The conservation by using only in situ approaches may not be sufficient enough to safeguard such a huge bio-resource of endangered medicinal plants. Hence, the use of biotechnological methods would be vital to complement the ex vitro protection programs and help to reestablish endangered plant species. In this backdrop, the key tools of biotechnology that could assist plant conservation were developed in terms of in vitro regeneration, seed banking, DNA storage, pollen storage, germplasm storage, gene bank (field gene banking), tissue bank, and cryopreservation. In this chapter, an attempt has been made to critically review major endangered medicinal plants that possess anticancer compounds and their conservation aspects by integrating various biotechnological tool

Hypoglycaemic effect of aqueous extracts of natural plants and callus cultures of <i>Munronia pinnata</i> (Wall.) W.Theob. in Wistar rats

659-664Munronia pinnata (MP) is one of the most demand herbs in the Sri Lankan drug market which has been used for various ailments in folk medical practice in Sri Lanka. There is an urgent need to adapt ex situ conservation methods via in vitro propagation techniques due to the high demand and overharvesting of this herb. The possible use of calli as a substitute for whole plants has been queried. The purpose of the present study was thus to compare the hypoglycaemic effect of aqueous extracts of natural plant (MPaq) and calli (MPCaq) of MP in <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic">healthy and alloxan induced diabetic rats. Natural plants and 3-months’ old calli of MP were used for the preparation of aqueous extracts. Effect of graded doses of both extracts of MP on serum glucose (SGL) of normal rats was studied. In case of diabetic rats, the results were compared with the reference drug glibenclemide and safety assessment of extracts was evaluated following administration for three months. Both MPaq and MPCaq extracts were showed reduction of the serum glucose levels of normal and diabetic rats. The reduction of SGL by MPaq and MPCaq were showed higher (24% and 18%) as compared to that of glibenclamide (16%) in diabetic animals. This study has been able to demonstrate that both MP<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic"> extracts exhibits statistically significant hypoglycaemic effect were compared to the reference drug and proves the scientific rationale for its use as a popular folk medicine for diabetes. </span