Which part of a medicinal plant should be selected for research?

Dear Bhavesh:

Your question is very general and broad based. One choice would be the potentially most prominent pharmacologic activity of the plant in question. A majority of medicines and experimental drugs is based on plant procyanidins or proanthocyanidins (earlier known as condensed tannins). One's choice of the plant part to be utilized may be related to ethnopharmacology/ethnobotany issues. Certain questions may be helpful. What are associated traditional/ conventional uses of this plant? Being a medicinal plant, what is known of its "herb like", “spice like” activity? What beneficial conditions could be ascribed to this plant usage based on 1) anecdotal evidence, 2) traditional and conventional use, 3) native wisdom (example, willow bark {salicin, aspirin), and 4) does the plant show promise as a beverage (generic tea)?

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3 Recommendations

Patrick B. Chalo Mutiso

University of Nairobi

Most of the herb plants, Aerial parts tend to have more interesting compounds because Flowers, leaves , Stems, fruits and seeds are all aerial parts and most of the Photosynthesis/Respiration take place at the aerial part.

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2 Recommendations

Dr. Tresina Soris P

V.O.Chidambaram College, Tuticorin

Dear Sir,

First of all collect the aerial parts separately, shade dry and powder it and prepare various solvent extracts with it and proceed with phytochemical screening, total phenolics and flavonoids estimation. Based on the best results obtained in various parts, you can choose the plant part for your further research.

Good Luck

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5 Recommendations

Chithan C Kandaswami

University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

Dear Bhavesh:

As Dr Burzynski remarked, all the tissues need to be included in the analysis. Medicinal plants would contain terpenes/isoprenoid compounds; some fruit, fruit peel fruit rind and seed limonoids -(limonene , limonene glucosides) may be relatively unstable. There are differences in the subcellular localization of flavonoids in plants used in traditional medicine; the distribution of flavonoids in some whole leaf extracts may vary from that of chloroplasts; whole leaf extracts possess certain flavonoids that may not be found in chloroplasts. There may be distinct differences in the relative concentrations of flavonoids in whole leaf extracts and chloroplasts isolated from the same plant sample.

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Anal K. Jha

O.P.Jindal University

Twigs are the most suitable parts.

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If the root is being used as an ethnic medicine, then you should conduct your research on roots. I do not think you can correlate the phytochemicals contained in various parts of plant. So, better you take consent from the relevant authority and proceed your work.

All the best.

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1 Recommendation

Madina Mohamed Adia

Makerere University

If the research is about proving the traditional claim scientifically, then you should go for the part they are using to heal taking care not to up root the whole shrub. Because not all compounds in a plant are evenly distributed in the plant parts.

Best of luck

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6 Recommendations

Godwin Upoki Anywar

Makerere University

In agreement with Madina, it is best you go with the part(s) used traditionally. Since the plant is to be harvested for research purposes, usually small samples are required, therefore you do not have to worry about destructive harvesting.

Also for comparison purposes, you can analyse different parts of the plant just to determine if other parts may have some of the active ingredients. You can then recommend basing of the findings of your study that the leaves may be equally potent, negeting the need to use the roots for example

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2 Recommendations

Bhavesh Tiwari

Aarti Pharmalabs Ltd

Dear Godwin and Madina,

Thanks for your suggestions. I will try to do the comparative phytochemical and efficacy study.

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Kyriaki Zannettou

Cyprus Environmental Federation

i agree with Godwin Anywar. the traditional medicin is very wise because everything came out after long-long practicing the effect of different plants and different parts of plants. but that doesn't mean that the areal parts of the same plant haven;t any medicinal values. some times we start from a single receipt of the traditional medicine which describe the use of a part of a medicinal plant, without knowning that there are also other receipt or receipts of the traditional medicine, using different parts of the same plant, either for the same illness or for different purposes. anyway traditional medicine use the most active part of a medicinal plant.

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2 Recommendations

Chellaiah Muthu

Al Yamamah Company for Trading and Contracting, Saudi Arabi

Each and every part of the plants have either similar activity or varied activity. Selection of the plant should be done based on the ethnobotanical information. If the particular part is active then proceed accordingly. If the root is active based on ethnobotanical information then select root alone. No need to uproot the plant. Dig sideway and cut some roots of the desired plant (without causing any damage to the main root) and close the pit. By this way collecting the roots from many plants. Cutting a few roots of the plant will not harm the growth. If there any feasibility to mass multiply the desired plant, uprooting can be done. For comparing the other parts of the desired plant with active part (mentioned in ethnobotanical information) can be done. If similar results will be obtained then go with aerial parts.

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1 Recommendation

Munawir Al

Universitas Jember

More information from etnobotanical and traditional used are important. Its will drived you, which part do you start for your study.

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Evans Ehouman

Cirad - La recherche agronomique pour le développement

If you want to assess the traditional use of medicinal plants, keep close to the tradition a information given. Not only take into account the part but also the solvent to be used.

Good luck

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1 Recommendation

Evans Ehouman

Cirad - La recherche agronomique pour le développement

Be sure that as Madina Adia said, secondary metabolite from plants can be produce in leaves, then transported through out the phloem to be stored in other parts, roots for instance. So, this fact may explain the reason why different parts have the same activity

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1 Recommendation

Bhavesh Tiwari

Aarti Pharmalabs Ltd

Dear all, thanks a lot for your valuable suggestions.

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Ajay Sharma

University of Mississippi

if you just want to find the different secondary metabolites and their composition then go for aerial parts specially leaves. leaves have large number of secondary metabolites as compared to rest of the parts. further the concentration of these secondary metabolites also more in leaves.

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1 Recommendation

Muhammad Azhar Hayat Nawaz

COMSATS University Islamabad

Targeted drug discovery is good strategy while working on medicinal plants. After drying and grinding of different parts of plant , next step is extraction in different solvents according to their polarity . Then their phytochemical screening using different assays will help you to decide which part of the plant has maximum bioactivity .

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1 Recommendation

Thiambi Netshiluvhi

National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI)

Given that uprooting and debarking plants contribute to local extinction, it is important to use other parts of plants such as leaves, flowers, etc. In some plant species, leaves have proven to contain concentration of activity similar to or larger than that of a root or bark.

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1 Recommendation

Deepak Kumar Semwal

Uttarakhand Ayurved University, Dehradun

I appreciate your proposed work on regenerated parts of the plant rather that roots. For the scientific validation, you should compare the HPLC, HPTLC or simply TCL profile of roots, leaves, floweres and fruits. For this purpose you need a very little quantity of the extracts from these parts. The extract which shows similar or almost similar chemical profile to that of roots, you can select that part for your further study. good luck

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1 Recommendation

Thiambi Netshiluvhi

National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI)

If it is about confirming that indeed the root extracts of the shrub possess promising principles (medicinal properties), you may not need too much biomass as a sample. Therefore, harvesting enough for your experimentation may not require uprooting the whole plant, but perhaps a piece of a root leaving the plant to recover. I suggest that you also test the existence of principles in leaf, fruit, seed and or bark extracts. That way, your findings may be more meaningful in terms of raising awareness to local users that they could also obtain the same or even better principles in some plant parts other than the roots.

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1 Recommendation

Bhavesh Tiwari

Aarti Pharmalabs Ltd

Dear Thiambi,

I appreciate your valuable thoughts over generating the awareness about use of particular plant part to local users. I will surely follow the same .

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Bhavesh Tiwari

Aarti Pharmalabs Ltd

Dear Deepak Kumar Semwal,

Thanks for the advice. I am following the same path now for my research.

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M. C. Sidhu

Panjab University

@ B. Tiwari,

First of all you have to collect the roots to test that what is their of your medicinal interest. I mean to say to find out that which phytochemicals is responsible for medicinal activity.

After this you can collect the aerial parts of the plant separately and study their phytochemicals individually.

Then compare the phytochemicals data of roots with the other aerial parts.

If you find the phytoconstituents of your interest in a better/equal quantity in any other parts of the plant under consideration. You can replace roots with that one.

Regards

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1 Recommendation

Chellaiah Muthu

Al Yamamah Company for Trading and Contracting, Saudi Arabi

All the parts in a plant will not be similar activity. Selection of the plant parts should be based on the traditional information. Extraction with different solvents also play a vital role in selection of the plant parts. So, extraction with different organic solvents and select the plant parts based on the activity. Plants type also to be considered. For example, it it is a herb, we can use the whole plant. If it is shrub or small to big trees, we can use different parts for selection. Before selecting a plant, economical threat also to be considered.

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2 Recommendations

John Nkya

The Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology

It is true that roots may lead to death of plant and it is not recomended, the best thing to do is to compare phytochemical constituents with other parts although it is very rear to have the same activity. However, since in research we need only small amount of plant material and it is not neccesary to uproot the whole tree, you can proceed with roots.

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1 Recommendation

Noble K Kurian

BS Abdur Rahman Crescent Institute of Science and Technology

Try to culture that shurb in vitro.Use Agrobacterium rhizogenes to produce hairy roots.Bacterial infection will produce large amount of roots.This can be used drug extraction.

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2 Recommendations

Baraka Luca Chelela

Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism

Tissue culturing the plant roots will be the best option to spare the wild plant

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1 Recommendation

Kyriaki Zannettou

Cyprus Environmental Federation

keep the mother tree and culture new ones for your experiment. that needs some time but if you want really to proof whether a traditional receipt is correct you have to use the mentioned part of the medicinal herb, other modifications of the receipt does not give you what you want to experiment.

if you want to see whether other parts of the herb have the same effect is a different question.

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1 Recommendation

Thiambi Netshiluvhi

National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI)

I suggest you do the following.

(1) Harvest just enough root sample to test for the claimed existence of biological activity; (2) Then, test leaf/flower/seed/fruit extracts to see if they too possess the same or even better biological activity than of the root.

The two exercises above will justify the reason for using either of the extracts, particularly if the demand for biomass is excessive. However, if the root extract has better activity than of other extracts, there may be no way to avoid harvesting roots. Since the plant is a shrub, I guess it is fast growing. Therefore, users may have to plant their own shrubs ex situ in order to meet excessive demand for root biomass (especially for commercial purpose).

I also agree to Madina Adia's suggestion that if the purpose for your study is to prove the claim scientifically, then you can go ahead and use roots because such tests will not at all lead to over-utilisation and killing of the plant population. It is largely when harvesting of roots (uprooting) is for commercial purposes that local extinction may be experienced.

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1 Recommendation

B.R. Rajeswara Rao

Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants

Dear Bhavesh Tiwari

Since you stated that your selected plant is a shrub, you can always collect a part of the root system without killing the plant. I am attaching two slides that show how the tribal people were trained by forest officials to collect the tubers of Asparagus racemosus without killing the mother plants.

Good luck.

New Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 Presentatio
n.pptx
4.50 MB

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1 Recommendation

Thiambi Netshiluvhi

National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI)

A very interesting question indeed. I totally agree with some of the people who do not see a problem with continuing to use root samples to test claimed efficacy. As part of your study, it may be advisable for you to also test and compare efficacy of other parts such as leaves, flowers and flowers, with that of roots. The reason for doing that would be to establish alternative sources that may give you the same of even better efficacy without detrimental consequences that could lead to local extinction. One is rest assured that once the root is known to be the only source of excellent efficacy, uprooting and over-exploitation may follow, especially for commercialisation purposes. One of practical solutions to overutilisation of medicinal resources is ex-situ cultivation in combination with sustainable management of plant populations.

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1 Recommendation

Bhavesh Tiwari

Aarti Pharmalabs Ltd

Thank you Rao sir, the information in the form ppt was really helpful.

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Bhavesh Tiwari

Aarti Pharmalabs Ltd

The suggestions given by Thiambi Netshiluvhi is also helpful.

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Marcus Athaydes Liesenfeld

Universidade Federal do Acre

Dear Bhavesh,

We will start a similar study, where we will also need to collect the underground part of a plant. How did you solve your problem? I think we can plant seed and when it germinates, we collect the root for testing.

My best,

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1 Recommendation

Bhavesh Tiwari

Aarti Pharmalabs Ltd

Sir, I worked on some other part of the plant considering the amount of bronchitis present.

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Hemant K. Badola

Former Advisor to the Chief Minister of Sikkim (India) and Former Scientist G & Head: GB Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment Sikkim. Presently at: Aditya Doonshire Apts, Sailok Phase 2, GMS Road, Dehradun, India

Dear Bhavesh, I am sure you have had a wonderful journey of exploring your prioritised shrub species for the desired results. It is now time to share those results, especially what part of plant yielded best results and how your methodology was useful; also you may please name of your identified species.

Awaiting hearing you, Best wishes,

Hemant K Badola

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Ben Lukubye

Emory University

I guide that the candidate collects part of the shrub roots but carefully in that they collect the roots from a wide number of the shrub plant without uprooting the plant and ensuring the plants remain with roots enough to ensure their survival.

it is then important to test the leaves, stem and fruits or flowers for their antimicrobial activity.

Additionally the candidate would propagate the plant and grows it in the laboratory or in the botanical garden at the institute then base all his / her studies on the same grown plant

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Ben Lukubye

Emory University

it is then important to test the leaves, stem and fruits or flowers for their antimicrobial activity.

Additionally the candidate would propagate the plant and grows it in the laboratory or in the botanical garden at the institute then base all his / her studies on the same grown plant

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Namrata Singh

Shri Guru Ram Rai Institute of Technology & Science

Sir my question is also same. Petioles part used in research work.

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Adnan Musaimugaga

Al-Azhar University

Cassava stem, is my project this year any ideas on how I should conduct the research?

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Gowri Radhakrishnan

Faculty of Pharmacy, M.S.Ramaiah University of Applied sciences

I think a portion of the root and the other parts like leaves, stems can be collected separately and perform the extraction. Collect different extracts (diff. parts) and do qualitative and quantitative phytochemical analysis. Findout out which part has the maximum quantity of secondary metabolites accordingly you can choose the part of the plant.

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Kyriaki Zannettou

Cyprus Environmental Federation

i agree but in case that you do not find from ethnobotany which part is useful so to safe your time of research.

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