Novel bioactive compound from the bark of Putranjiva roxburghii Wall

Abstract

Putranjivah (Putranjiva roxburghii Wall, family – Putranjivaceae) is an Indian native medicinal plant used to treat many diseases such as treatment of mouth and stomach ulcers, hot swellings, smallpox, burning sensation and ophthalmopathy. The study of chemical constituents in the bark of P. roxburghii resulted in a new triterpene (6) along with five known triterpenoids (1–5). The chemical characterisation was based on ¹H, ¹³C, 2D-NMR experimentation, and ESI-MS data. The anti-plasmodial activity was investigated by measuring parasite-specific lactate dehydrogenase (pLDH) based in vitro assay. The IC₅₀ value results showed that friedlein (2.40 ± 0.70) and roxburghonol (4.10 ± 1.7 μg/ml) possess better anti-plasmodial activity than other isolated triterpenes (2–5) but not as potent as chloroquine (0.023 ± 0.002 μg/ml) against chloroquine-sensitive Plasmodium falciparum (3D7) strain.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

Keywords:

• Ayurveda
• anti-plasmodial activity
• nor-triterpenes
• P. roxburghii

Disclosure statement

We hereby confirm that authors have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

Authors thank Director, CSIR-CIMAP, Lucknow for providing necessary research facilities and infrastructure for this work. SM gratefully acknowledges the funding support received from the Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi, India, for the INSPIRE Fellowship (IF-150254).