Studies on podophyllotoxin content in different populations of Podophyllum hexandrum Royle in Himachal Pradesh

Abhishek Sharma; YP Sharma; Vinod Kumar

Studies on podophyllotoxin content in different populations of Podophyllum hexandrum Royle in Himachal Pradesh

Author(s):

Abhishek Sharma, YP Sharma and Vinod Kumar

Abstract:

Podophyllum hexandrum Royle, a valuable medicinal herb, grows in the Himalayan alpine and subalpine zones. Underground part of the plant yield highly valued lignin, podophyllotoxin which is effective in treatment of lung cancer, a variety of leukemias, and other solid tumors. The root and rhizome of the plant is being indiscriminately harvested in large quantities from the wild to meet the ever increasing demand of the crude drug for pharmaceutical purposes, leading to steady decline in its natural populations. Due to this reckless harvesting from wild the species has come up in the list of ‘critically endangered’ species as per IUCN criteria.

During the present study, ten population of Podophyllum hexandrum from Himachal Pradesh at altitude ranging from 2050 m to 3636 m amsl were studied for active constituent. Plants of Podophyllum hexandrum were observed to have different number of leaves/ plant viz single leaf, two leaves, three leaves and four leaves per plant.

The podophyllotoxin content in different types of plants of different population ranged from 2.93% to 6.31% in roots, 2.22% to 8.96% in rhizomes and 2.85% to 6.95% in whole underground part i.e. rootstock.

During the present investigation, plants from Koksar, Chatru and Chanshal ghati population excelled well in terms of podophyllotoxin content and further studies are needed for testing their superiority under cultivated conditions.

Pages: 1829-1833 | 937 Views 425 Downloads

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Journal of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry

How to cite this article:

Abhishek Sharma, YP Sharma and Vinod Kumar. Studies on podophyllotoxin content in different populations of Podophyllum hexandrum Royle in Himachal Pradesh. J Pharmacogn Phytochem 2019;8(4):1829-1833.

Pharmacognosy

Journal of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry

Vol. 8, Issue 4 (2019)

Studies on podophyllotoxin content in different populations of Podophyllum hexandrum Royle in Himachal Pradesh

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