Abstract

PLANT LATEX: AN INHERENT SPRING OF PHARMACEUTICALS

Chavan Bhagyashri A.*, Hundiwale Jogendra C. and Patil Avinash V.

ABSTRACT

A plant system in nature always stands as a golden mark to represent the outstanding phenomenon of symbiosis. From erstwhile, medicinal plants have taken mightily and noteworthy strides to treat the diseases and also having the potentially useful substances for the development of novel chemotherapeutic useful drugs. Nearly all parts of plants can be used in medicinal applications. But plant latex has major contribution in medicine as it contain biologically active compounds such as alkaloids, flavonoids, terpenoids, glycosides, phenolics, tannins and saponins etc. which are not only beneficial for plant defense but also for the development of things such as disinfectants, anticoagulant etc., advantageous for human beings. Mixture of various chemical constituents in plant latex protects the plant from herbivorous insects. In this review we focused on the phytochemical study of latex as well as the evidences that the latex serves as potent pharmacological agent against various diseases and its isolated constituents have wide range of biomedical activities.

Keywords: Bioactivity, Laticiferous plants, pharmacological activity, phytochemical analysis, plant latex.