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Botanical Leads for Drug Discovery pp 137–158Cite as

Medicinal Plants and Their Role in Inflammation: A Close Look on Future Drug Discovery

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Abstract

Inflammation is a salubrious process resulting from a number of perturbances. It plays a protective role in our body and in some conditions engenders some negative effects such conditions include the inflammatory disorders rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, inflammatory bowel diseases, retinitis, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, and atherosclerosis. For surmounting this quandary, the search for more incipient drugs is very requisite and obligatory, and there are many of phytochemical constituents present in plants which are playing a very paramount role in the treatment of inflammation. The present chapter shows some plant phytochemicals which are having anti-inflammatory activity that has been tested in inflammatory models utilizing the modern scientific techniques. In this chapter, the inflammatory activity of different species of medicinal plants are explained which mainly include Apiaceae, Asteraceae, Berberidaceae, Burseraceae, Caesalpinaceae, Capparidaceae, Chenopodiaceae, Combretaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Lamiaceae, Lauraceae, Moringaceae, Myricaceae, Myrtaceae, Oleaceae, Papaveraceae, Pinaceae, Ranunculaceae, Rutaceae, Sapindaceae, Thymelaeceae, and Verbenaceae. The major chemical constituents present in these anti-inflammatory plant species include azadiradione, flavonol, gallic acid, gentisic acid, kaempferol, nimbin, 3-o-galloyl-(-)-epicatechin-4-benzylthioether, pinene, ricinoleic acid, thujone, and several other important bioactive compounds. These compounds play a significant role in current research and help a lot in developing new formulations for herbal botanicals and ongoing current pharmacological research.

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Abbreviations

%:

Percentage

i.e.:

That is

μM:

Micromolar

μl:

Microliter

ml:

Milliliter

cm:

Centimeter

kg:

Kilogram

Bcl-xL:

B-cell lymphoma-extra large

BCL2:

B-cell lymphoma 2

COX:

Cyclooxygenase

IL-1:

Interleukin-1

LTC4:

Leukotriene C4

LTB4:

Leukotriene B4

LPS:

Lipopolysaccharide

NSAIDs:

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs

NF-Πb:

Nuclear Factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells

p38 MAPK:

p38 mitogen-activated protein kinases kinase

pTEN:

Phosphatase and tensin homolog

PI3K/ATK:

Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/protein kinase B

PPAR:

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors

PGE2:

Prostaglandin

PGI2:

Prostacyclin

TPA:

Tissue plasminogen activator

TNF-α:

Tumor necrosis factor-A

VEGFR-2:

Vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2

WHO:

World Health Organization

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Acknowledgment

The authors would like to express their utmost gratitude and appreciation to Director, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu. We also thank the Department of Science and Technology- India for providing research fellowship to G. Sawhney via fellowship code no. DST/INSPIRE Fellowship/2017/IF170212.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this chapter.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Inflammation Pharmacology Division, Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, India

    Gifty Sawhney

  2. Department of Higher Education, Government of Jammu and Kashmir, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, India

    Satinder Kaur

  3. Inflammation Pharmacology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, India

    Asha Bhagat & Zabeer Ahmed

Authors
  1. Gifty Sawhney
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  2. Satinder Kaur
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  3. Asha Bhagat
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  4. Zabeer Ahmed
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zabeer Ahmed .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Plant Sciences (Biodiversity and Applied Botany Division), CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR) Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, India

    Bikarma Singh

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Sawhney, G., Kaur, S., Bhagat, A., Ahmed, Z. (2020). Medicinal Plants and Their Role in Inflammation: A Close Look on Future Drug Discovery. In: Singh, B. (eds) Botanical Leads for Drug Discovery. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5917-4_7

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