AN OVERVIEW ON COMMIPHORA WIGHTII (ARN.)BHANDARI, AN ENDANGERED PLANT SPECIES OF BURSERACEAE FAMILY

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1 Shweta WORLD et al. JOURNAL OF World PHARMACY Journal of Pharmacy AND PHARMACEUTICAL and Pharmaceutical Sciences SCIENCES SJIF Impact Factor Volume 3, Issue 11, Review Article ISSN AN OVERVIEW ON COMMIPHORA WIGHTII (ARN.)BHANDARI, AN ENDANGERED PLANT SPECIES OF BURSERACEAE FAMILY *N. Shweta and Illa Patel Department of Life Sciences, Hemchandracharya North Gujarat University, Patan (Gujarat). Article Received on 12 September 2014, Revised on 02 October 2014, Accepted on 26 October 2014 *Correspondence for Author Shweta Narasimhan Department of Life Sciences, Hemchandracharya North Gujarat University, Patan (Gujarat). ABSTRACT Comiphora wightii (Arn.)Bhandari is a medicinally important plant which is now considered an endangered species. This paper is an overview of the details of this plant, i.e its occurrence, botanical description, its medicinal uses, its phytochemistry and its conservation strategies both by invivo and invitro techniques that have been carried out so far in the world. KEY WORDS: Commiphora wightii, conservation, guggalsterones, in vivo technique, in vitro technique, phytochemistry. INTRODUCTION The Commiphora wightii (Arn.) Bhandari (Burseraceae) plant is known as Indian bdellium. It is distributed in the arid, rocky tracts of Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Mysore States of India, and the Sindh and Baluchistan States of Pakistan. In Gujarat, this species is mainly found in Kachchh and in some parts of Saurashtra regions (Sabnis and Rao, 1983; Shah, 1978). Earlier the plant was found abundant in Rajasthan and Gujarat but currently threatened because of significant declines in population sizes (IUCN, 2004) and faulty extraction methods employed by traditional guggul resin collectors. It came in vulnerable list in the 1997 IUCN Red List as vulnerable (VU) and in the 2004 IUCN Red List as data deficiency (DD) (IUCN, 2004). The Government of India has recently banned the export of the gum (IUCN, 2004), due to its high market price in international trade. Generally the gum resin is collected by tribal people using traditional tapping methods involving making several deep incisions on the stem to extract the maximum amount of gum. They then apply a paste around the incision consisting of horse or wild ass urine, oleo gum Vol 3, Issue 11,

2 resin and copper sulphate. Whilst this crude method increases the amount of gum three to four times over that obtained under normal tapping procedures, the shrub becomes subsequently unfit for tapping for the next couple of years and ultimately plants may die due to the injurious effect of copper sulphate (Kshetrapal & Sharma 1993). It is now believed that such tapping methods to increase gum yield causes mortality of plants. Guggul gum is a source of guggulsterones and has many medicinal properties. It lowers hepatic cholesterol levels by acting as an antagonist of the FXR bile acid receptor, important in metabolism of cholesterol [URIZAR, 2002]. It takes 8 to 15 years to become commercially exploitable through tapping and yields 700 to 900 g resin after which the plant invariably dies [SABINSA CORP., 2000]. Moreover, seeds are a result of apomixes so their formation is very irregular. Apomixis is non-pseudogamous [GUPTA & al. 1996, 1998]. According to one report, the germination rate is as low as 1.4% [YADAV & al. 1999) and it is a slow growing species [SONI, 2010]. Hence, natural regeneration rate of this species is very low. BOTANIC DESCRIPTION Commiphora wightii (Arnott.) Bhandari, commonly known as Indian bdellium, or guggul, is an important medicinal plant of the herbal heritage of India. It is a small tree indigenous to India, growing wild in the semi-arid states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Karnataka. It is muchbranched, dioecious, up to 6 m tall with brown coloured, spine scented knotty, crooked and spirally ascending branches ending in sharp spines (Kumar and Shankar, 1982). Bark shiny, ash to yellowish white coming off in rough flakes exposing the greenish underbark, which also peels off in thin papery rolls. Leaves small, sessile, rhomboid-(ob)ovate, 1-3 leaflets, highly aromatic, leathery, shinning green on top and greyish below with irregularly toothed edges. Flowers small, unisexual, sessile, brownish red, occurring singly or in groups of 2-3, 8-10 lobed disc and an oblong-ovoid ovary; stamen Fruit an ovoid green berry like drupe, reddish, 6-8 mm in diameter. Seed generally contain an under developed embryo. The generic name is derived from Greek kommis and phora meaning gum bearer. This is a threatened and vulnerable species due to its over-exploitation. MEDICINAL USES For centuries, guggul has been used extensively by Ayurvedic physicians to treat a variety of afflictions, including arthritis, inflammation,bone-fractures, obesity and disorders of lipid metabolism. It provides guggul, an oleogumresin whose medicinal and curative properties are mentioned in the classic Ayurvedic medical text, the Sushruta Samhita 3000 years ago. Vol 3, Issue 11,

3 The plant has become endangered because of over exploitation for its gum-resin, associated with slow growth of the plant, poor seed set and excessive tapping for gum-resin, which causes mortality of the plant. Gum-resin yield guggulsterones effective against high blood cholesterol and lipids. Guggul gum is pharmacologically active in controlling rheumatoid arthritis, obesity and peptic ulcer (Atal et al., 1975). The pharmacological and clinical studies on its crude drug constituents and various extractives have revealed its significant hypocholestermic, hypolipidimic, antiinflammatory, antirheumatic and antifertility activities (Nityanand and Kapoor, 1971a,b; Kapoor et al., 1979; Kakrani, 1981a,b; Tajuddin et al., 1994; Singh, et al., 2001). Guggulsterone Z and E, the active constitute of resin are responsible for lipid lowering properties in human blood (Satyavati et al., 1969; Tripathi et al., 1968; Singh et al., 1994). Despite having so many activities no reports have been found on the antibacterial activity of guggul gum up to structural identification of active compound. PHYTOCHEMISTRY Anthocyanin are natural pigments belonging to the flavonoid family and are responsible for the red, blue and purple colours of many fruits, berries and flowers. The golden yellow oleogum-resin is a complex mixture of over two dozen ketones, several phenolics, diterpenoids and sterols [Dev 1989]. Tender stems are red but anthocyanin contents are never reported in in vivo or in vitro cultures. A stable and high yielding cell line is an important component for scaling up of a process. In the study conducted by Dass et al 2008, the selection of highly pigmented cells by visualization followed by medium manipulation resulted in a stable cell line, which on repetitive selection and subculture yielded high anthocyanin containing cell clusters. With the discovery of the hypolipidemic activity for the gum resin, several chemical investigations have been undertaken. It was found that guggul resin is a complex mixture of various classes of chemical compounds such as lignans, lipids, diterpenoids and plant steroids. A waxy solid comprising a mixture of esters based on homologous long chain tetraols and ferulic acid with a unique structure, was identified in the benzene phase (Satyavati, 1991). In a more detailed study by Kumar et al. (1987), the stereochemistry of these tetraols was determined. Guggal Sterone is the resin of Mukul myrrh tree, a small, thorny plant found predominantly in the rocky, dry regions of India. Gum Guggulu, the yellowish resin produced in the stem of the Commiphora mukul tree is obtained by tapping Vol 3, Issue 11,

4 the tree throughout the year. This resin is the source of the active components, Z- guggulsterone and E-guggulsterone (Antonio 1999) as well as another eight steroids, acids, several aromatic acids, terpenes, and fatty acid alcohols. Some components seem to focus on cholesterol reduction activity, some are anti-inflammatories (Arora 1972, Duwiejua 1993) and some appear to work synergistically. CONSERVATION STRATEGY The plant is an important medicinal plant and is used in large number of ayurvedic preparations to treat variety of diseases. Identification and preclinical/clinical development of novel antiangiogenic agents continues to be a topic of intense research (Dhanabal et al., 2005; De Smet et al., 2006). In vitro raised callus are being widely used. The callus was raised from explants of cotyledonary leaf and root segments of Carthamus tinctorius (Rani et al., 1996) and Allium sativum (Myers and Simon, 1998) were efficient for differentiation. Callus cultures were established from the immature stem of C.wightii which was then optimized for the production of anthocyanin (Dass etal 2008). The selected tree of C.wightii were micropropagated through forced axillary branching on Murashige and Skoog's (MS) medium supplemented with benzyladenine (BA) and kinetin which were later subjected to shoot elongation and root development later establishing successfully in the soil (Durga etal 1993). Insitu conservation Of C.wightii in Rajasthan have been conducted where in Commiphora wightii have been conserved in its natural habitat (in situ protection) through the development of protected area networks. Local communities (rural and tribal peoples) as well as local authorities were involved in the project. Proper education was provided on the value of medicinal succulent plants, and the need for their conservation and sustainable use (Vineet soni 2008). CONCLUSION Commiphora wightii has been found to be an endangered species which is found in only selected part of the world. This plant is however found to be useful in treatment of many ailments. The secondary metabolites produced in plant have been studied and have found to be useful in treatment of various diseases. However the cutting of plant for the extraction of the metabolites has been found to destroy the plant. Hence there is a need to conserve it. Vol 3, Issue 11,

5 With the reference of various techniques used in other plants conservation strategy have been successfully found by invitro and invivo techniques. However more conservation strategies and techniques need to be developed to conserve this endangered species. REFERENCES 1. Atal CK (1975). Source of guggul in Indian system of medicine. Econ. Botany, 1975; 29: Antonio J, Colker CM, Torina GC, et al. Effects of a standardized guggulsterone phosphate supplement on body composition in overweight adults: A pilot study. Curr Ther Res, 1999; 60: Arora RB, Taneja V, Sharma RC, et al. Anti-inflammatory studies on a crystalline steroid isolated from Commiphora mukul. Indian J Med Res, 1972; 60(6): Dass S, Tanwar, Y.S and Ramawat, K.G. (2008), Commiphora wightii callus cultures: a new source of anthocyanin, journal of herbal medicine and toxicology, 2008; 2(1) Dev, S.: PureAppl.Chem. 1989; 61: Dhanabal, M. Jeffers, W. J. Larochelle (2005). Curr Med Chem Anticancer Agents: Vol, 2005; 5: Durga M. Barve & A.R. Mehta 1., (1993), Clonal propagation of mature elite trees of Commiphora wightii, Plant Cell, Tissue and Organ Culture, 1993; 35: Duwiejua M, Zeitlin IJ, Waterman PG, et al. Anti-inflammatory activity of resins from some species of the plant family Burseraceae. Planta Med, 1993; 59(1): F. De Smet, P. Carmeliet, M. Autiero (2006). Nature Chemical Biology: Vol. 2006; 2: Gupta P., Shivana K. R. & Mohanram H. Y Apomixis and Polyembryony in the Guggal Plant, Commiphora wighti. Annals of Botany. 1996; 78: Gupta P., Shivana K. R. & Mohanram H. Y Pollen-pistil interaction in a nonpseudogamous apomict, Commiphora wightii. Annals of Botany. 1998; 81: J. M. Myers and PW Simon (1998). Plant Cell Rep., 1998; 17: Kakrani HK (1981a). Guggul- A review. Indian Drugs,1981a; 9: Kakrani HK (1981b). Flavonoids from the flowers of Commiphora mukul, Fitoterapia, 1981b; 52(5): Kapoor NK, Sukhdev NS (1979). Process for obtaining hypolipidimic and antiplate fraction from guggul resin. Indian Patent No Vol 3, Issue 11,

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7 30. Vineet Soni, (2008), Final Project Report of In-Situ conservation of Commiphora wightii a red listed medicinal plant species of Rajasthan state, India. Species survival Commission, IUCN the world conservation Union. Vol 3, Issue 11,