Ankur Patwardhan, Makarand Pimputkar and Radhika Joshi1
Plants from the Western Ghats Mountains (a global biodiversity hot-spot) in western India are increasingly gaining importance for their newfound disease curative properties. One such example is an extract of the plant, Salacia chinensis Linn, the compound Salacinol which (along with related compounds) is increasingly being used in the treatment of diabetes. Of late, demand for this extract has increased at a rapid pace, leading to widespread overharvesting of Salacia roots (the plant part predominantly used for extraction) and consequent population decline by over 50%. Such overexploitation in a global biodiversity hotspot threatens the ecological sustainability of this fragile ecosystem and global health care, as well as local livelihoods. One strategy to relieve the harvest pressure on wild population while attempting to cater to the ever increasing demand of raw material by the pharmaceutical industry is to utilize alternative plant parts and raise viable commercial cultivation. With a view to developing a sustainable harvest strategy, this paper presents an assessment of anti-diabetic activity of alternative plant parts (stems, seeds, leaves). We present the results of in vitro evaluation of α- glucosidase inhibition activity by S. chinensis extracts with respect to parameters like plant part, age of plant and effective solvent system. Promising α- glucosidase enzyme inhibition results were obtained from crude extracts of stems and seeds. The highest inhibition levels demonstrated by aqueous extracts of roots and stems were 80.43 ± 1.14 % (IC50-22.17 μg/ml) and 81.2 ± 0.41 % (IC50- 22.23 μg/ml) respectively, whereas for successive aqueous extracts of seeds inhibition levels were 56.0 ± 1.30 % (IC50-79.04 μg/ml). By demonstrating that stems and seeds of S. chinensis can be used as an alternative to roots, our study has the potential to form the basis for a sustainable path forward for the harvesting of this plant for medicinal purposes.
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