Therapeutic Potential and Ethnopharmacology of Dominant Mangroves of Bhitarkanika National Park, Odisha, India.

Bhitarkanika National Park is the second largest contiguous mangrove forest of India. Approximately 0.15 million mangrove depending population are found residing in and around 307 villages within the National Park. Despite being one of the most diverse mangrove habitations of India, the ethnopharmacological practices are meager in comparison to the other mangrove regions of India and Southeast Asia. The present review is aimed to congregate information on the therapeutic potential and ethnopharmacology of nine dominant mangrove species of the National Park, such as Aegiceras corniculatum, Avicenia marina, Avicenia officinalis, Ceriops decandra, Excoecaria agallocha, Heritiera fomes, Lumnitzera racemosa, Rhizophora mucronata, and Sonneratia apetala. Our aim is to generate social awareness among the mangrove dwellers to promote uses of folklore medicine using these tremendously potential mangrove plants, as a complementary step to strengthen community health. Further, we also want to grab the attention of researchers working in related disciplines, for their holistic and extensive studies towards bio-prospectation of the dominant mangrove plants of Bhitarkanika National Park.

Disease Burden and Current Therapeutical Status of Leprosy with Special Emphasis on Phytochemicals.

BACKGROUND: Leprosy (Hansen's disease) is a neglected tropical disease affecting millions of people globally. The combined formulations of dapsone, rifampicin and clofazimine (multidrug therapy, MDT) is only supportive in the early stage of detection, while "reemergence" is a significant problem. Thus, there is still a need to develop newer antileprosy molecules either of natural or semi-synthetic origin. OBJECTIVES: The review intends to present the latest developments in the disease prevalence, available therapeutic interventions and the possibility of identifying new molecules from phytoextracts. METHODS: Literature on the use of plant extracts and their active components to treat leprosy was searched. Selected phytoconstituents were subjected to molecular docking study on both wild and mutant types of the Mycobacterium leprae. Since the M. leprae dihydropteroate synthase (DHPS) is not available in the protein data bank (PDB), it was modelled by the homology model method and validated with the Ramachandran plot along with other bioinformatics approaches. Two mutations were introduced at codons 53 (Thr to Ile) and 55 (Pro to Leu) for docking against twenty-five selected phytoconstituents reported from eight plants that recorded effective anti-leprosy activity. The chemical structure of phytochemicals and the standard dapsone structure were retrieved from the PubChem database and prepared accordingly for docking study with the virtual-screening platform of PyRx-AutoDock 4.1. RESULTS: Based on the docking score (kcal/mol), most of the phytochemicals exhibited a higher docking score than dapsone. Asiaticoside, an active saponin (-11.3, -11.2 and -11.2 kcal/mol), was proved to be the lead phytochemical against both wild and mutant types DHPS. Some other useful phytoconstituents include echinocystic acid (-9.6, -9.5 and -9.5 kcal/mol), neobavaisoflavone (-9.2, -9.0 and -9.0 kcal/mol), boswellic acid (-8.90, -8.90 and -8.90 kcal/mol), asiatic acid (-8.9, -8.8 and -8.9 kcal/mol), corylifol A (-8.8, 8.0, and -8.0), etc. Overall, the computational predictions support the previously reported active phytoextracts of Centella asiatica (L.) Urban, Albizia amara (Roxb.) Boivin, Boswellia serrata Roxb. and Psoralea corylifolia L. to be effective against leprosy. CONCLUSION: A very small percentage of well-known plants have been evaluated scientifically for antileprosy activity. Further in vivo experiments are essential to confirm anti-leprosy properties of such useful phytochemicals.