Abstract
The genus Macaranga Thou. (Euphorbiaceae) comprises of about 300 species that are native mainly to the tropics of Africa, Asia, Australia and the Pacific regions. Plants of this genus have a long history of use in traditional medicine to treat cuts, swellings, boils, bruises and sores. Phytochemical work on this genus has reported over 190 secondary metabolites being isolated mainly from the leave extracts of different species of this genus. The isolated compounds included stilbenes, flavonoids, coumarins, terpenoids, tannins and other types of compounds. The crude extracts and isolated compounds showed a wide spectrum of pharmacological activities including anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, anti-microbial and anti-plasmodial activities. The aim of this review is to coherently document the valuable but scattered reports on the phytochemistry and pharmacology of medicinal plants of the genus Macaranga collected from different parts of the global. Key words: Macaranga species, Euphorbiaceae, phytochemistry, pharmacology.
Highlights
IntroductionPlants are shrubs or trees that grow up to 15 m tall
The genus Macaranga Thou. belongs to the family Euphorbiaceae
This article has reviewed the existing knowledge regarding species of the genus Macaranga. It is a valuable undertaking as it aims to document the important but scattered reports on phytochemistry and pharmacology of medicinal plants of the genus Macaranga collected from different parts of the world
Summary
Plants are shrubs or trees that grow up to 15 m tall Members of this genus are known for their mutual associations with ants (Fiala et al, 1990). More classes of secondary metabolites like terpenes (Salah et al, 2003; Jang et al, 2004; Phormmart et al, 2005; Kawakami et al, 2008), tannins (Lin et al, 1990; Gunawan-Puteri and Kawabata, 2010; Ngoumfo et al, 2008), coumarins (Sutthivaiyakit et al, 2002; Darmawan et al, 2012) and other types of compounds (Ramaiah et al, 1979; Ngoumfo et al, 2008; Matsunami et al, 2009; Zakaria et al, 2010) are known to be isolated from different species of the genus Macaranga. An increasing number of phytochemical studies are being carried out on plants belonging to the genus Macaranga due to their various traditional uses. The isolated natural products from this genus have been reported to
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