ETHNOMEDICINAL, PHYTOCHEMICAL AND PHARMACOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF FLACOURTIA JANGOMAS: A REVIEW

Abstract

Flacourtia jangomas (Lour.) Raeusch., a small tree of Willow family distributed throughout tropical regions of East Africa and Asia is well-known for its culinary and medicinal uses. The plant has received increasing interest due to its limonoid constituents. Phytochemical studies have led to the isolation and characterization of an array of bioactive compounds and pharmacological investigations have validated the traditional uses of the species as well as discovered some new bioefficacies. The aim of the review is to present an updated and comprehensive overview of traditional uses, ethnomedicinal significance, phytochemical and pharmacological aspects of F. jangomas to highlight its ethnopharmacological use and to explore its therapeutic potentials thereby providing a basis for future research. Relevant information and literature on F. jangomas from electronic databases such as Academic Journals, Google, Google Scholar, PubMed, Web of Science, and Science Direct were consulted and analyzed. Available literatures evidently demonstrate that F. jangomas possess a wide spectrum of pharmacological activities that could be explained by the presence of varied range of chemical constituents. Phytochemical and pharmacological investigations showed that extracts of different parts and major active components of F. jangomas had antimicrobial, analgesic, antidiabetic, antidiarrheal, antioxidant and cytotoxic activities. This emphasizes the need for further investigation to explore more bioactive chemical constituents and new bioefficacies of the plant and to establish a credible relationship between molecular structure and activity of compounds.