﻿Contribution to the microscopic identification of Zingiber officinale

Anna Gavrilova,Dora Trifonova,Genadi Gavrilov

doi:10.3897/pharmacia.69.e78304

Abstract

Zingiber officinale Roscoe has a very long history of use throughout the world, both as a spice and as a medicinal plant. During the last two years in the midst of a global pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 the use of various herbal products with ginger rhizome as active ingredient increased because of its numerous health beneficial properties. A detailed characteristic of the crude powdered drug is presented by microscopic photographs for the first time. Although the structure of ginger rhizome is relatively simple and well-studied, the presented results in combination with the detailed analysis of the literature provide additional insight to the pharmacopoeial guidelines for the identification of ginger powder.

Highlights

One of the most accessible and popular sources of natural antioxidants and other health promoting compounds are plants that combine the qualities of food, spices and traditional remedies
Ginger is referred as promising herbal medicine useful to relieve symptoms related to upper respiratory conditions, pulmonary fibrosis, pneumonia, ARDS (Acute respiratory distress syndrome) through its anti-inflammatory effect and immune response improvement
Despite the evolving high-tech methods for the identification of plant substances based on DNA-sequencing, chromatography, microscopic image processing through probabilistic neural network (PNN) algorithms, etc. (Chavan et al 2008; Andayani et al 2020), classical microscopic examination according to pharmacopoeial principles remains the most cost-effective approach for research and for the needs of botanical industries in case the diagnostic microscopic characteristics are preserved

Summary

Introduction

One of the most accessible and popular sources of natural antioxidants and other health promoting compounds are plants that combine the qualities of food, spices and traditional remedies. Ginger is one of the most prominent representatives of this group of plants, which is cultivated intensively and globally used. Over the last two decades, the interest in the properties of this plant is constantly increasing. As a confirmation of this can be considered the big increase in the world production of ginger of 153% for the period 2007–2019. During the last two years in the midst of a global pandemic of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) the use of various herbal products with ginger rhizome as active ingredient increased even more because of its pronounced antiviral properties (Jafarzadeh et al 2021). Ginger is referred as promising herbal medicine useful to relieve symptoms related to upper respiratory conditions, pulmonary fibrosis, pneumonia, ARDS (Acute respiratory distress syndrome) through its anti-inflammatory effect and immune response improvement. Based on clinical and safety studies it is assessed as a potential adjuvant therapy to COVID-19 (Boozari and Hosseinzadeh 2020; Silveira et al 2020; Thota et al 2020)

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