Review on medicinal importance of Vigna genus

Abstract

Globally, there are more than 500,000 plant species (green scum, duckweed, lichens, liverworts, fungi, ferns, conifers, mosses and flowering plants etc.) that maintain earth’s environmental equilibrium, ecosystem stability and also possess vast endemic, aesthetic and cultural importance, provide medicine, food, fuel, shelter and clothing. Plants are used as therapeutic agents to improve health by a large part of population. Several clinical facts suggest that plant derived foods hold various potential health benefits and well known as neutraceuticals. These are the products that are used as food or as a part of food (foodstuffs), able to cure and prevent diseases in addition to their basic nutritional value. More than 200,000 chemical compounds are synthesized by plants and no doubt, also possess medicinal importance. Worldwide, about 70% plant based preparations are used as traditional medicines and also facilitate the base for 50 percent of prescription and/or over the counter drugs used in the Western-type practice of medicine. For underdeveloped and developing countries, it is a need to provide safe, efficient and cheap medications. In various part of India medicinal plants are widely distributed and always have increasing demand due to their medicinal properties. The present review is focused on the genus Vigna which is widely cultivated and used as neutraceuticals. They grow in varied climatic zones, in high temperatures, low rainfall and poor soils with low input in form of fertiliser and irrigation that make them valuable crop plants. As Vigna is an important genus that fulfils the food demand, useful in cosmetics and medicines, there is scope to enhance its productivity via resource conservation, optimum use of rainwater, bridging the yield gaps and innovations in technology transfer and up scaling. One of the important steps to find out a way to increase the production is the detection and analysis of naturally occurring DNA sequence variation by using DNA markers or molecular markers as these markers are indispensable tool that construct maps of genetic linkage and mark the agronomically important traits.