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Swertia chirata (Chirata) and Withania somnifera (Ashwagandha)
Published in Azamal Husen, Herbs, Shrubs, and Trees of Potential Medicinal Benefits, 2022
Suchita V. Jadhav, Pankaj S. Mundada, Mahendra L. Ahire, Devashree N. Patil, Swati T. Gurme
Phytochemicals of Withania have been studied extensively by different research groups. Ashwagandha contains various alkaloids, saponins, and steroidal lactones and has been used for different purposes. It contains steroidal lactones called withanolides (Elsakka et al., 1990). The roots of Withania contain numerous alkaloids, including withanine, withananine, withananinine, pseudo-withanine, somnine, somniferinine; additionaly, roots have about 18 fatty acids, β-sitesterol, polyphenols, and phytosterols (Figure 15.4). Amino acids, like aspartic acid, glycine, tyrosine, alanine, proline, tryptophan, glutamic acid, and cystine are specifically found in roots of Ashwagandha (Krutika et al., 2016).Major phytoconstituents in Withania somnifera.
Bioactive Constituents in Indian Medicinal Plants Traditionally Recognized for Brain Health Benefits
Published in Abhai Kumar, Debasis Bagchi, Antioxidants and Functional Foods for Neurodegenerative Disorders, 2021
Deepak Mundkinajeddu, Amit Agarwal, Gururaja Giligar Manjunatha, Vineet Kumar Singh
The available scientific data support the traditional use of Ashwagandha as a regenerative tonic “rasayana” with brain health benefits. Roots of the plant are prescribed in traditional systems of medicine and in line with the same maximum work in the modern scientific literature which has been performed on extracts and constituents derived from the roots. Withanolides, typically present in higher quantities in alcoholic extracts, are widely considered as the active constituents of the plant, have also been studied both in vitro and in vivo. Multiple pharmacological actions of the plant such as antioxidant, antistress, neuroprotective, neuroregenerative, and anti-inflammatory seem to contribute to the overall benefits observed related to brain health. It is also interesting to see that preclinical studies have been performed on some of the tough brain disease areas such as AD and PD.
Pharmacological actions of chemical constituents
Published in C. P. Khare, Evidence-based Ayurveda, 2019
Plant steroids constitute a diverse group of natural products. Biosynthetically, they are derived from S-squalene-2,3-epoxide via an acetate-mevalonate pathway. Among the plant steroids, phytosterols are ubiquitous in the plant kingdom. It is significant that some phytosterols have been reported to possess hypocholesterolemic activity. Withanolides are a large group of steroidal lactones with various biological activities. Brassinosteroids are a small group of plant steroids exhibiting plant growth hormonal activity. Phytoecdysteroids are polyhydroxylated plant steroids, many of which are known to exhibit anabolic effects with no undesirable side effects. Steroidal alkaloids are nitrogen-containing plant steroids with an array of biological activities.
Pharmacological evaluation of Ashwagandha highlighting its healthcare claims, safety, and toxicity aspects
Published in Journal of Dietary Supplements, 2021
Deepa S. Mandlik (Ingawale), Ajay G. Namdeo
Withanolides is a group of steroidal lactones responsible for the pharmacological activity of roots of W. somnifera (Figure 2) (Budhiraja and Sudhir 1987). Laboratory investigations has concluded that over 35 phytoconstituents are present in the roots of W. somnifera (Rastogi and Mehrotra 1998). Phytochemical analysis has discovered the occurrence of diverse chemical constituents in different parts of W. somnifera. Up till now, more than 40 withanolides, 12 alkaloids, and rare sitoindosides have been present in the plant (Mirjalili et al. 2009) (Table 3). The most remarkable ingredients are tropine alkaloids such as Convolamine, Convoline, Convolidine, Convolvine, confoline, convosine, etc. (Prasad et al. 1974; Lounasmaa 1988; Singh and Bhandari 2000). The fresh plant of W. somnifera contains Fatty acids, Fatty alcohols, Volatile oils, Myristic acid, Palmitic acid, Linoleic acid, and Hextriacontane. The roots of W. somnifera contains Reducing sugar, Starch, Glycosides, and Withaniol acid. It also contains eight bases such as Withanine, Withananine, Withananinine, Pseudowithanine, Withasomnine, Somniferine, Somniferinine, and Somnine (Majumdar 1955; Maheshwari 1989; Mishra 1989).
Bioactive metabolites from the leaves of Withania adpressa
Published in Pharmaceutical Biology, 2018
Widad Ben Bakrim, Laila El Bouzidi, Jean-Marc Nuzillard, Sylvian Cretton, Noémie Saraux, Aymeric Monteillier, Philippe Christen, Muriel Cuendet, Khalid Bekkouche
The genus Withania (Solanaceae) consists of eight species (The Plant List 2013) occurring predominantly in North Africa and from the Mediterranean basin to India (Hepper 1991). This genus is known for elaborating withanolides, which are steroidal lactones characterized by a C28 basic skeleton. Since the isolation of withaferin A (Lavie et al. 1965), more than 750 withanolides with various functional groups have been isolated, largely but not exclusively, from about 25 genera of Solanaceae (Hang et al. 2012). In recent years, withanolides have attracted a significant attention from numerous researchers owing to their structural features and their multiple bioactivities such as cytotoxic (Cordero et al. 2009; Hang et al. 2012), anti-inflammatory (Jayaprakasam and Nair 2003), immunomodulatory (Mesaik et al. 2006), anticholinesterase (Choudhary et al. 2005), and antioxidant (Bhattacharya et al. 2001) properties.
Withanolide a penetrates brain via intra-nasal administration and exerts neuroprotection in cerebral ischemia reperfusion injury in mice
Published in Xenobiotica, 2020
Sumedha Mukherjee, Gaurav Kumar, Ranjana Patnaik
Withanolide A (WA) (≥95% pure) was purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (Cat No: W2145) and was dissolved in methanol (Merck) to obtain standard solutions ranging from 0.05–50 µg/mL for preparation of standard curve and for the intranasal dosage of mice for brain penetration study, the solution was prepared in phosphate buffer saline (PBS, pH – 7.4). The solutions were sonicated and vortexed to obtain a homogenous dispersion before administration.