Bacopa monnieri

Plant drugs have a long history in both traditional and modern societies as crude drugs. The plant drugs have been extensively practiced as traditional medicine since centuries by peoples of almost all countries of the world. The medicinal plants are considered to be the almost exclusive source of primary health care as well as a source of pharmacological active compounds for 80 % of the world’s population, herbal medicines have been proven effective in common as well as rare diseases. Bacopa monnieri belongs to the family Scrophulariaceae is perennial, creeping herb, origin to wetlands of southern and eastern India, Australia, Europe, Asia, north and South America. The major therapeutic chemical constituents of this plant identified through various researches are the Triterpenoids, Saponins, Bacoside, Flavonoids and Glycosides. Bacoside A has been recognized as the chief component responsible for therapeutic effects. The plant is used in traditional Ayurvedic treatment for a range of CNS applications, being considered as a memory tonic. It has been found to possess various CNS actions including nootropic, antidepressant and anxiolytic action. It is also considered to be an important adaptogen. This review shall cover pharmacological properties, chemical constituents and scientific researches supporting not only traditional use of Ayurvedic claims but also other physiological conditions such as anti-inflammatory, cardio tonic and other pharmacological effects of B. monnieri extracts.

Screening of phytochemicals is a precious stair in the detection of bioactive principles present in particular medicinal plant and may lead to novel drug discovery. In the present study, Bacopa monnieri root extracts are tested for phytochemical and biochemical studies. Ethanolic extract shown good number of compounds compared to methanolic, ethyl acetate, aqueous and chloroform extracts. Phytochemical analysis of ethanolic tuber extract of Bacopa monnieri has shown the biological compounds like carbohydrates, cholesterol, Amino acids, Steroids, Alkaloids, Flavonoids, Cardiac glycosides, Saponins, Tannins, Terpenoids, Phlobatinins, Fattyacids, Coumarins and Phenols. The result suggests that the phytochemicals present in Bacopa monnieri tuber extracts may show antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.

Plant derived medicines are popularly used nowadays considering their natural origin and low side effects. Phytochemical compounds are responsible for their various biological activities. Qualitative evaluation of such formulations is a challenging task due to high variability of their chemical components. This work aimed at preparing and evaluating a polyherbal anti-stress medicine, formulated using four potent Ayurvedic drugs namely Withania somnifera, Valeriana wallichii, Bacopa monnieri and Piper longum and also isolating a bioactive marker compound from the same.The formulation was prepared as per classical methods of Ayurveda and analysed for physicochemical characters like loss on drying, total ash content, acid insoluble ash, water soluble extractive value and alcohol soluble extractive value by standard methods. Phytochemical analysis was performed for detecting presence of carbohydrates, phenols, flavonoids, tannins, alkaloids, steroids, Terpenoids, glycosides and saponins and for estimating active groups like total phenolic content, flavonoids, tannins and saponins. High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography fingerprint profiling was performed to confirm the presence of various phytocompounds. The biomarker compound was isolated by column chromatography method and characterized by UV-Visible, H1-NMR, C13-NMR and Mass spectroscopy methods. Physicochemical analysis showed presence of about 18% water soluble components and about 14% alcohol soluble components. Preliminary phytochemical analysis confirmed presence of carbohydrate, phenols, flavonoids, tannins, alkaloids, steroids, glycosides, phytosterols and saponins. Quantitative analysis showed presence of about 7.6% phenols, 1.3% flavonoids, 1.1% tannins and 3.5% saponins. Spectroscopic study indicated isolated compound is a phenolic compound 3, 4, 5-tri hydroxybenzoic acid.