Adhatoda vasica Nees (Acanthaceae);
NTRODUCTION
Adhatoda vasica Nees. belongs to the medicinal family Acanthaceae; is an evergreen shrub, distributed from the Punjab in the North and Bengal and Assam in the South-East to the Ceylon, Malaya and Singapore in the South (Rahman et al., 2004). It is well known in Ayurveda by its Sanskrit name Vasaka and commonly known as Adusa. First botanically described as
Justicia adhatoda by Linnaeus (Species Plantarum, 1753), redefined as Adhatoda vasicaby Nees (1831) the name by which it is generally known today.
The leaves of Adusa have been in use in Indian systems of medicine for last more than 2000 years. The plant is appreciated for containing bronchodilator alkaloids, mainly vasicine. All parts of the plant are used in herbal medicine and particularly the leaves are endorsed with insecticidal and parasiticidal properties. The root is valuable in strangury, leucorrhoea, bronchitis, asthma, bilious vomiting, sore eyes, fever and gonorrhoea. It is a valuable antiseptic, antiperiodic and anathematic (Kirtikar and Basu, 1994).
The shrub is the source of the drug-vasaka, well known in the indigenous systems of medicine for its beneficial effects, predominantly in bronchitis. The leaves, flowers, fruits and roots are extensively used for treating cold, cough, whooping cough and chronic bronchitis and asthma as sedative expectorant, antispasmodic and as anthelmintic (Siddiqui and Husain, 1994).Adhatoda vasicais an Ayurvedic medicinal plant which is a home remedy for several diseases and human requirements. It is mentioned in Vedas as an herbal remedy for treating cold, cough, whooping cough and chronic bronchitis and asthma, as sedative expectorant, antispasmodic and anthelmintic. It is a licensed drug and is mentioned in the India Pharmacopoeia (Pharmacopoeia of India, 1966). The drug is employed in different forms such as fresh juice, decoction, infusion and powder; also given as alcoholic extract and liquid extract or syrup. The leaf juice is confirmed to cure diarrhoea, dysentery and glandular tumor. The powder is reported to be used as poultice on rheumatic joints as counter-irritant on inflammatory swelling, on fresh wounds, urticaria and in neuralgia (Wealth of India, 1985).
In 2007 survey cum study on Demand and Supply of Medicinal plants in India by National Medicinal Plants Board, New Delhithrough Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT), Bangalore listed Adathoda vasica Nees. under top 36 Medicinal Plant Species in High Trade & consumed in volumes exceeding 100 MT per year. It is also listed under Majormedicinal plant species exported from India (Handa, 1992). The demand of this important plant is mostly met from the natural habitat. This plant show low seed germination and conventional propagation through cutting is slow (Wealth of India, 1985). This leads to rapid depletion of plant material due to over exploitation.
SCIENTIFIC CLASSIFICATION
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Kinkdom Planta
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Division Angiosperms
Class Eudicots
Order Lamiales
Family Acanthaceae
Genus Justicia
Species J.adhatoda
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Plant description:
Adhatoda vasica Nees. belongs to the medicinal family Acanthaceae. It is an evergreen shrub of 1-3 feet in height with many long opposite branches. Leaves are large and lance-shaped. Stem herbaceous above and woody below. Leaves opposite and exstipulate. Flower spikes or panicles, small irregular zygomorphic, bisexual, and hypogynous. K4-5, C5,imbricate, A, didynamous, epipetalous, G (2), two celled. Style simple, stigma two of unequal size (Shinwari and Shah, 1995). It has capsular four seeded fruits. The flowers are either white or purple in colour. Its trade name Vasaka is based on Sanskrit name. (Kumar et al., 2010).Inflorescencesin axillary spicate cymes, densely flowered; peduncles short; bracts broadly ovate, foliaceous. The leaves, flowers, fruit and roots are extensively used for treating cold cough, whooping cough, chronic bronchitis and asthma, as sedative, expectorant and antispasmodic (Pandita, 1983).History:
Adhatoda vasica commonly called as Vasaka or Arusha. It is an important medicinal plant found in India and utilized in rural areas for several ailments. It has been in use for over 2000 years (Chopra, 1982; Singh, 2008). The plant has been recommended by Ayurvedic physicians for the management of various types of respiratory disorders. The leaf extract has been used for the treatment of bronchitis and asthma for many centuries. It relieves cough and breathlessness (Chihara, 1997).
Origin and distribution:
Adhatoda vasica Nees.is native to India. It is distributed all over the plains of India & in lower Himalayan ranges, ascending to a height of 1,300 m. It is a small evergreen, sub-herbaceous bush which grows universally in open plains, especially in the lower Himalayas up to 1300 meters above sea level (Global Herbal Supplies.Spread from the Punjab in the North, and Bengal and Assam in the South-East to the Ceylon, Malaysia and Singapore in the South. It is one of the very important medicinal plants in this area (Rahman et a., 2004).
Phytochemical studies of Adhatoda vasica Nees:
Chemical compounds found in leaves and roots of Adhatoda vasica Nees. also includes essential oils, fats, resins, sugar, gum, amino acids, proteins and vitamin‘C`etc. (Dymock, 1972). The main constituents of Adhatoda vasica Nees. are pyrroquinazoline alkaloids viz. Vasicine and Vasicinone(Chihara, 1997).Vasicine, at low concentrations, induced relaxation of the tracheal muscle. Athigh concentrations, vasicine offered significant protection against histamine induced bronchospasm in guinea pigs. Vasicinone, the auto oxidation product of vasicine(Brain and Thapa, 1983; Chowdhuri and Hirani, 1987)has been reported to cause bronchodi latory effects both in vitro and in vivo. Of the two alkaloids, vasicinone was found to be more potent than vasicine, with potential antiasthmatic activity comparable to that of disodium cromoglycate (Atal, 1980).Vasicine is a major bioactive pyrroquinazoline alkaloid of vasaka which is present in the concentration of 1.3%. In minor alkaloids there are adhatonine, vasicinol and vasicinolone. Four quinazoline alkaloids: vasicoline, adhatodine, casicolinone and anisotine have been obtained from the leaves and vasicinone and vasicol have been secluded from inflorescence. Sitosterol, β-glucoside-galactose and deoxyvasicine have been isolated from the roots of the plant (Jain et al., 1980). 2’-4-dihydroxychalcone-4-glucoside has also been recognized in the flowers (Bhartiya and Gupta, 1982).Itis also studied that leaves also yielded a quinazoline alkaloid identified as 1, 2, 3, 9-tetrahydro-5-methoxypyrrolo [2, 1-b] quinazoline-3-ol.
Flowers of Adhatoda vasica Nees. Mainly contain kaempferol and quercetin (Rawat et al.,1994). A new triterpenoid, 3-hydroxy-D-friedoolean-5-ene, along with the known compounds, epitaraxerol and peganidine have been isolated from the aerial parts of Adhatoda vasica Nees. (Atta-Ur-Rahman et al., 1997).
For the quantitation of vasicine, spectrophotometreic (Srivastava et al., 1999), titrimetric (Singh et al., 2000), and HPTLC (Singh et al., 2000)methods are available, but they lack precision and accuracy because of low sensitivity and due to interference by other compounds. The analytical method HPLC method has been developed for quantitation of vasicine and vasicinone in A. vasica plant extract that is suitable for the rapid screening purpose of different genetical and agronomical field experiments (Srivastava et al., 2001).Different methods were used for extraction of juice from Adhatoda vasica Nees. But the traditional method (TLC densitometric method) was found to give the best quality juice with highest amount of total alkaloids and vasicine content (Soni et al., 2008).
A new method of capillary electrophoresis was developed (Avula et al., 2008) for the quantitative determination of vasicine and vasicinone from Adhatoda vasica Nees. The method was validated in terms of reproducibility, linearity, accuracy and applied for the quantitative determination of vasicine and vasicinone in Adhatoda vasica Nees. Plant samples/extracts. (Sunita and Dhananjay, 2010) performed the Aluminium chloride colorimetric method for quantitative determination of flavonoid (flavonols) contents in different Adhatoda vasica extracts.A crude plant drug derived from Adhatoda vasica is highly valuable in clearing phlegm and lung problems, was infested with seasonal pests. Infested leaves showed high ash value out of which sulphated ash content was almost 80 % and more. This possibly interfered with the curative value of the green drug leading to allergy (Emimal, 2010). Application of organic manures viz. cowdung, Farm Yard Manure (FYM), compost and vermicompost affected the total phenol and total flavonoid content in A. vasica leaves (Upadhyaya et al., 2010).The plant shows wide seasonal variation in vasicine content in its leaves. It exhibited higher levels of vasicine twice in a year i.e. 3.0% in March and 1.4% in September. Interestingly, it coincided with the flowering of the plant. In March, it was full bloom condition and in September, it was partial flowering. During the vegetative stage, the plant contained very low concentration of vasicine.
Insecticidal properties: Adhatoda vasica Nees. is an insecticidal plant (Martin Rathi et al., 2008), leaf extract has shown anti-feedant activity against Spodoptera littoralis.
Antipyretic Activity: JU-RU-01, a poly herbal formulation was prepared that contains Adhatoda vasica Nees. Andrographis paniculata Nees. and
Moringa oliefera Lam. The formulation (JU-RU-01) was verified for its anti pyretic activity in animal models. It was concluded that the antipyretic activity of JU-RU-01 is due the combined effect of the active constituents of these important medicinal plants (Chandraet al., 2010).A. vasicaleaf (Vasaka), known as Vasain Ayurveda, is an important drug prescribed for malarial fever, fever caused by pitta and kapha, chronic fever.
HIV-Protease inhibitor activity: The crude extracts of Adhatoda vasica Nees. exhibited powerful inhibitory activity of enzyme Pepsin thus according to the study it might be a effective inhibitor of HIV-Protease which belongs to same aspartate family of enzyme and sharing same signature group at the active site.
Activity against gastrointestinal nematodes: The ethanolic extract of Adhatoda vasica Nees. has been found effective in inhibiting egg hatching and larval development of gastrointestinal nematodes. It was thus suggested that Adhatoda vasica extracts may be useful in the control of gastrointestinal nematodes of sheep.
Mild steel corrosion inhibitor activity: Adhatoda vasica Nees. acted as good inhibitor for mild steel corrosion in 1N HC1, 1N H2SO4 and 1N H4PO4 acid solutions.
Hepatoprotective activity: Biologically active phytoconstituents such as Alkaloids-Quinazoline, Flavonoids, Tannins, Vasicinone, Essential oil which are present in the various extracts of Adhatoda vasica plant are accountable for the significant hepatoprotective activity.
Anti-ulcer activity: Adhatoda vasica Nees. in addition to its classically established pharmacological activities, also has immense potential as an anti-
ulcer agent of great therapeutic relevance.
Antioxidant and anti-clastogenic activity: Adhatoda vasica Nees. also shows the antioxidant and anti-clastogenic efficacy against cadmium chloride (CdCl2)-induced renal oxidative stress and genotoxicity in Swiss albino mice supports its anti-mutagenic efficacy.
Anti tuberculer activity: It was found that bromhexine and ambroxol, the semi-synthetic derivatives of vasicine, from the Indian shrub Adhatoda vasica Nees. have activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis in vitro.The herb is known to contain one of the most potent anti T.B. drug.
Anti-cancer and radio-protector activity: Methanolic extracts of Adhatoda vasica with both low and high drug doses have shown its potentiality as a radio-protector against the therapeutically induced mutations which can prove to be a contributor in cancer management in future. Such indigenous Indian, herbal, cost effective, poor man friendly drug will definitely be a potential adjuvant to cancer treatments like radiotherapy and chemotherapy since Amifostine a well known radioprotector given to the patients at the time of cancer therapy is expensive and has its own side effects.
Antimutagenic activity: Adhatoda vasica Nees. shows protective effect against radiation-induced damage at cellular, biochemical and
chromosomal levels in Swiss albino mice.
Oxytocic/abortifacient activity: Studies have been carried out which indicated that vasicine, the alkaloid of Adhatoda vasica Nees. holds
promise for its use as an Oxytocic/abortifacient in therapeutics. After treating patients with vasicine various hematological and biochemical investigations and kidney and liver function tests were carried out before, during and after vasicine treatment. It was found that uterus became firm and contracted after vasicine treatment which indicated its effectiveness as an Oxytocic.
Anti-inflammatory activity: Anti-inflammatory activity of methanolic extracts of Adhatoda vasica Nees. were evaluated by using modified hens egg chorioallantoic membrane.
Anti-feedant activity: Adhatoda vasica Nees. extracts have also shown anti-feedant activity against Spodoptera litura(Fab.) larvae.
Activity against bacterial leaf blight disease in rice: Adhatoda vasica Nees. has been recommended to use in order to control seed borne bacteria, X anthomonas oryzae pv. Oryzae (Xoo) and development of disease, therefore, we can say that Adhatoda vasica leaf extract is environmentally safe in the management of seed-borne bacterial leaf blight disease in rice.
Genetic variability: Huge variability has been found among the genotypes of Adhatoda vasica Nees. in plant height, number of sub-branches per plant, number of spikes per plant, number of leaves per plant and the leaf area. The genotypes compared using SDS-PAGE showing differences also in the protein components. This genetic variability will have important role to breed better varieties of the plant for commercial cultivation and economic benefit of the farmer’s community with small land holdings.
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