Abstract
In folk medicine, Adhatoda vasica Ness. (Acanthaceae) is used to treat asthma and cough. The leaves of A.vasica were powdered and extracted with hexane, ethyl acetate and methanol. The hexane extract showed 97% reduction in colony-forming units (CFU) at 100 µg/ml. The hexane extract was subjected to column chromatography. Two natural compounds, vasicine acetate and 2-acetyl benzylamine, were isolated from it. They were bioassayed against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The two compounds showed strong antimycobacterial activity. Vasicine acetate and 2-acetyl benzylamine isolated from hexane extract of A.vasica leaves, significantly inhibited M. tuberculosis and one multi-drug-resistant (MDR) strain and one sensitive strain at 200 and 50 µg/ml, respectively. Our study demonstrated that both the compounds, vasicine acetate and 2-acetyl benzylamine, could be evaluated further for developing a drug to control M. tuberculosis.
Similar content being viewed by others
Abbreviations
- CFU:
-
colony-forming units
- LRP:
-
luciferase reporter phage
- MIC:
-
minimum inhibitory concentrations
- MDR:
-
multidrug-resistant
- OADC:
-
oleic acid-albumin-dextrose-catalase
- RLU:
-
relative light unit
- TB:
-
tuberculosis
References
Atal C K 1980 Chemistry and pharmacology of vasicine — a new oxytocic and abortifacient (Jammu-Tawi: Regional Research Laboratory)
Bhat V S, Nasavatl D D and Mardikar B R 1978 Adhatoda vasica-an Ayurvedic medicinal plant; Indian Drugs 15 62–66
Chopra R and Ghosh S 1925 Some observations on the pharmacological actions and therapeutic properties of Adhatoda vasica; Indian J. Med. Res. 13 205–212
Chowdhury B K and Bhattacharyya P 1987 Adhavasinone: a new quinazolone alkaloid from Adhatoda vasica Nees; Chem. Ind. 1 35–36
Caldwell S, Franzblau E and Suarez B 2000 Timmermann, Oleanane triterpenes from Junellia tridens; J. Nat. Prod. 63 1611–1614
Dorch W and Wagner H 1991 New anti asthatic drugs from traditional medicine; Int. Arch. Allergy Appl. Immunol. 94 262–265
Dymock W, Warden C and Hooper D 1893 Pharmacographia India. A history of the principal drug of vegetable origin met with in British India (London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co) pp 49–51
Gordien A Y, Gray A I, Franzblau S G and Seidel V 2009 Antimycobacterial terpenoids from Juniperus communis L. (Cuppressaceae). J. Ethnopharmacol. 126 500–505
Grange J M and Snell N J C 1996 Activity of bromohexine and ambroxol, semi synthetic dvt. Of vacisine from the Indian shrub Adhatoda vasica against Mycobacterium tuberculosis in vitro; J. Ethnopharmacol. 50 49–53
Gupta K C, and Chopra I C 1954 Antitubercular Effect of an Extract of Adhatoda vasica; Nature (London) 173 1194
Kamal A, Reddy K S, Ahmed S K, Khan M N A, Sinha R K, Yadav J S and Arora S K 2006 Anti-tubercular agents. Part 3. Benzothiadiazine as a novel scaffold for anti- Mycobacterium activity; Bioorganic Med. Chem. 14 650–658
Karthikeyan A, Shanthi V and Nagasathya A 2009 Preliminary phytochemical and antibacterial screening of crude extract of the leaf of Adhatoda vasica.L. Int. J. G. Pharma. doi:10.4103/0973-8258.49381
Kirtikar K R and Basu B D 1935 Indian medicinal plants Vols. 1–4 (Allahabad: Lalit Mohan Basu)
Lahiri P K and Prahdan S N 1964 Pharmacological investigation of vasicinol-an alkaloid from Adhatoda vasica Nees; Indian J. Exp. Biol. 2 219–223
Meindl W R, von Angerer E, Schonenberger H and Ruckdeschel G 1984 Benzylamines: Synthesis and Evaluation of antimycobacterial properties; J. Med. Chem. 27 1111–1118
Murillo J I, Dimayuga R E, Malmstrom J, Christophersen C and Franzblau SG 2003 Antimycobacterial flavones from Haplopappus sonorensis; Fitoterapia 74 226–230
NCCLS 2000 Suceptibility testing of Mycobcteria, Nocardia, and other aerobic actinomycetes; Tentative Standard, second edition; NCCLS document M24-T2 [ISBN 1-56238-423-6]. NCCLS, 960 West Valley Road, Suite 1400, Wayne, PA 19087-1898, USA
Okunade A L, Elvin-Lewis M P and Lewis W H 2004 Natural antimycobacterial metabolites: current status; Phytochemistry 65 1017–1032
Sivakumar P M, Seenivasan P S, Kumar V and Doble M 2007 Synthesis, antimycobacterial activity evaluation, and QSAR studies of chalcone derivatives; Bioorgan. Med. Chem. Lett. 17 1695–1700
Shawar R M, Humble D J, Van Dalfsen J M, Stover C K, Hickey M J, Steele S, Mitscher L A and Baker W 1997 Rapid screening of natural products for antimycobacterial activity by using luciferase-expressing strains of Mycobacterium bovis BCG and Mycobacterium intracellulare; Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 41 570–574
WHO 2000 Global Project on anti-tuberculosis drug resistance surveillance, anti-tuberculosis drug resistance in the world. Report N0.2, WHO/CDS/TB/2000.278
Young F, Critchley J and Unwin N 2009 Diabetes & tuberculosis: dangerous liaison & no white tiger; Indian J. Med. Res. 130 1–4
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ignacimuthu, S., Shanmugam, N. Antimycobacterial activity of two natural alkaloids, vasicine acetate and 2-acetyl benzylamine, isolated from Indian shrub Adhatoda vasica Ness. leaves. J Biosci 35, 565–570 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12038-010-0065-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12038-010-0065-8