Pharmacognostic Approaches

Western Ghats in India which has been globally accepted as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO serves as a hotspot of biological diversity, having a rich diversity of endemic medicinal plants with pharmacological value. The purpose of the current literature was to isolate and characterize new bioactive agents in some of the endemic plants, Coscinium fenestratum, Plectranthus vettiveroides and Garcinia indica. The used plant materials were obtained with a professional and ethical standard of collection of both conservation and ethical standards, extracted via solvent partitioning and then chromatographically separated. The presence of that structure was elucidated by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and high-resolution mass spectrometry ( HR MS) analysis. Screening of the bioactivity was done on antimicrobial, anticancer and antioxidant activities. It was found that there were three new alkaloids plus two flavonoid glycosides and a hitherto unknown Xanthone derivative. Such substances demonstrated a strong in vitro antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli, high antioxidant properties in assays of DPPH and ABTS, and selective human breast cancer cell lines cytotoxicity (MCF-7). These results add to the fact that the flora of the Western Ghats has significant potential in novel drug discovery.