pharmacognosy- emerging aspect for medicinal drugs

1. Pharmacognosy
Submitted to :- Submitted by :-
Dr. Amit C Kharkwal Himani Bhushan
M.
Sc(Microbiology)
3rd Sem

2. INTRODUCTION
• The word ‘pharmacognosy’ is derived from two Greek words
Pharmacon (drug) & Gnosis (knowledge).
• The term was used for the first time by the Austrian physician
Schmidt in 1811.
• During 19th century it was used to define the branch of
medicine science which dealt with drugs in their crude
form.
• Crude drugs are the dried, unprepared material of plant,
animal or mineral origin, used for medicine.
• The American Society of Pharmacognosy defines
pharmacognosy as "the study of the physical,
chemical, biochemical and biological properties of drugs,
drug substances or potential drugs or drug substances of
natural origin as well as the search for new drugs from

3. • Pharmacognosy deals with the natural drugs
obtained from organisms such as most plants,
microbes, and animals.
• many important drugs including morphine,
atropine, galanthamine, etc. have originated
from natural sources.
• Traditional medicine is also a part of
pharmacognosy eg : Neem, Ashwagandha.
• For active compound isolation natural products
are used which can be organism itself (plant,
animal, and microorganism), any part of an
organism (a leaf or flower of a plant, an isolated
gland or other organ of an animal), and extract or
pure substances.

4. Catharanthus roseus (Madagascar periwinkle)
• It is a species of flowering plant in the dogbane
family Apocynaceae.
• It is native and endemic to Madagascar, but
grown elsewhere as an ornamental and
medicinal plant.
• It is an endangered plant.
Fig 1: Catharanthus roseus

5. • It is widely cultivated in subtropical and
tropical areas of the world like Australia,
Malaysia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
• It is noted for its long flowering period,
throughout the year in tropical conditions, and
from spring to late autumn, in warm temperate
climates.
• In Ayurveda the extracts of its roots and
shoots, though poisonous, are used against
several diseases.
• The vinca alkaloids which are well known
source of drugs derived from the Madagascar

6. Vinblastine
Vincristine
Sold under the brand name
‘Velban’
Sold under brand name
‘Oncovin’

7. Fusarium species
• Fusarium is a large genus of filamentous fungi
widely distributed in soil and associated with
plants.
• Some of them such as Fusarium
pallidoroseum produce a metabolite called
Apicidin that counters malaria factor
Plasmodium berghei.
Apicidin

8. • Apicidin’s antiparasitic activity appears due to low
nanomolar inhibition of Apicomplexan histone
deacetylase (HDA), which induces
hyperacetylation of histones in treated parasites.
The acetylation–deacetylation of histones is a thought
to play a central role in transcriptional control in
eukaryotic cells.

9. ISOLATION OF BIOACTIVE
COMPOUND
FROM PLANTS
• Extraction
The basic operation included steps, such as pre-washing,
drying of plant materials or freeze drying, grinding to
obtain a homogenous sample and often improving the
kinetics of analytic extraction and also increasing the
contact of sample surface with the solvent system.
• Identification and characterization
different separation techniques such as TLC, column
chromatography, flash chromatography, Sephadex
chromatography and HPLC, are used to obtain pure
compounds. The pure compounds are then used for the
determination of structure and biological activity.

10. • Toxicity Assay
analysis of the effects on cultured bacteria or
mammalian cells.
• In vivo evaluation
• Clinical study

11. FROM MICROBES

12. DISADVANTAGES
• Few of them have been attributed to illnesses
and fatalities as some of them have reported to
cause liver and kidney damage.
• Inexplicit dosage.
• Storage conditions
• lack of information on the industrial use of
Medicinal plants.
• little or no fact on the market benefit and
business potentials.