An Overview on Phytochemistry and Pharmacological Explorations of Moringa oleifera

Article Information Received 26 December 2013 Received in revised form 15 Feb 2014 Accepted 26 Feb 2014 Abstract Medicinal plants have been one of the prominent sources of remedies since the inception of human civilization. In rural area herbal medicines are considered to be best healthcare products due to it’s easily availability. Globally, demand of herbal based medicines, health products, pharmaceuticals, food supplements, cosmetics, etc. has been intensified in alarming rate. Moringa oleifera belongs to family Moringaecea, native of the Indian subcontinent, where its diverse parts have been employed throughout history as food and medicine. The M. oleifera is extensively used for treating cancer, hyperlipidemic, diabetic, ulcer, analgesic, fertility, convulsant, liver disorder, wound, etc. Dietary consumption of its part is therein promoted as a strategy of personal health preservation and self-medication in various diseases. The phytoconstituents present in this plant are niazirin, niazirinin, flavonoids, anthocyanins, proanthocyanidin, kaempferol-3-O-(6''malonyl-glucoside), 4-hydroxymellein, β-sitosterone, octacosanic acid, β-sitosterol, etc. These various phytoconstituents contribute for different pharmacological activities. The present review is therefore, an effort to give a detailed overview of the published writings on phytochemistry and pharmacological activities of M. oleifera; this information will be beneficial in developing new formulations, which are more effective and have more therapeutic values.


Introduction
Since ancient times medicinal plants are utilized for the ailment of human disease.The resurgence of interest in natural drugs pioneered at last a decade, mostly because of the wide-spread persuasion that natural medicine is safer than the synthetic product.Nowadays, there is manifold increase in medicinal plant based industries due to the increase in the interest of use of medicinal plant throughout the world which is growing at a rate of 7 to 15% annually 1 .In India diverse system of medicinal practices are employed namely Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani, Amchi and local health traditions.These systems utilize a large number of medicinal plants for treatment of human and animal diseases 2,3 .Among different medicinal plants Moringa oleifera are used in Indian traditional medicine and in folklore for many diseases.The interesting things of this plant are each part of M. oleifera is used as medicines.
M. oleifera belongs to family Moringaecea.It is known for high nutritional and medicinal value.It physically resembles as a stick therefore a closely name given as drum stick 4 .It is widely used as a nutritive herb and possesses valuable pharmacological activities.It possess various pharmacognostical features, phytochemistry, nutritive and pharmacological activities like antimicrobial, anticancer, antihyperlipidemic, antidiabetic, antiulcer, analgesic , antifertility, anticonvulsant , hepatoprotective etc 5 .The leaves, roots, barks, flowers, pods and seeds of M. oleifera are used for the treatment of various diseases 6 .
M. oleifera are widely promoted in areas of chronic malnutrition as nutritional supplements for weaning infants and nursing mothers.Pods and leaves are suited for local markets where South and Southeast Asian foods are sold.In various scientific data it is documented that this plant content high nutritive value.Now it is required to aware the people of its nutrition value along with medicinal properties so that they can easily consume it 7 .

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This review accomplishes to contribute an overview of the phytoconstituents present in various parts of the M. oleifera and their pharmacological actions.

Geographical sources
M. oleifera is a quick growing tree of 10 m tall, widely cultivated all over the plains of India and naturalized in tropical area.It is also cultivated in north-eastern Pakistan, north-eastern Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, West Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, East and West Africa, throughout the West Indies and southern Florida, in Central and South America from Mexico to Peru, as well as in Brazil and Paraguay.It is cultivated in hedges and homeyard.It grows in all types of soil and grows best in conditions provided in North India and South India 8 .Leaves are up to 60 cm long.The flowers are 1.5-2 cm long.Fertile filaments covered with long fire hair pods 15 to 30 cm long pendulous 9,10 .

Pharmacological activity
The M. oleifera contain wide range of phytoconstituents and due to these important pharmacological activities have been reported  . The sientifically proved pharmacological activities of this plant are listed in Table 1.

Phytochemistry
Phytochemical investigations of M. oleifera have revealed that many components of this plant are highly bioactive.The summarize phytoconstituents [37][38][39][40][41][42] of M. oleifera are illustrated in table 2, and some important chemical structure are presented in figure 2.

Conclusion
It is concluded that M. oleifera play vital role in the ailment of various diseases.The different parts of this plant are reported to possess anticancer, antihyperlipidemic, antidiabetic, antiulcer, analgesic, antifertility, anticonvulsant, hepatoprotective, etc. Moreover M. oleifera have been used for decades to combat malnutrition.In M. oleifera the phytoconstituents such as sterols, flavonoids, β-sitosterol, glycosides, anthocyanins, proanthocyanidin etc present in adequate amount; and this make the plant medicinally important and/or nutritionally valuable.The present review showed that it is useful in a number of diseases.These investigations will be helpful to researchers for further utilization of the M.
oleifera in inventing novel formulations, which are more effective and have more therapeutic values.Moreover, not much work has done on isolation and purification of bioactive component presents in this plant.Hence this review also support the researchers belong to phytochemistry, to isolate and purify novel pharmacologically active and industrially important compounds.

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Figure 1 Chemical structure of some important phytoconstituents present in M. oleifera