Abstract
The plants of the genus Phyllanthus (Euphorbiaceae) have been used as traditional medicinal materials for a long time in China, India, Brazil, and the Southeast Asian countries. They can be used for the treatment of digestive disease, jaundice, and renal calculus. This review discusses the ethnopharmacological, phytochemical, and pharmacological studies of Phyllanthus over the past few decades. More than 510 compounds have been isolated, the majority of which are lignins, triterpenoids, flavonoids, and tannins. The researches of their remarkable antiviral, antioxidant, antidiabetic, and anticancer activities have become hot topics. More pharmacological screenings and phytochemical investigations are required to support the traditional uses and develop leading compounds.
Highlights
Phyllanthus (Euphorbiaceae) is a large genus and widely distributed in tropical and subtropical zones like tropical Africa, tropical America, Asia, and Oceania
The Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) prescription, named “yexiazhu capsule,” performs a beneficial role in curing hepatitis B. Other herbs such as P. reticulatus, P. niruri, and P. simplex are beneficial to the treatment of ophthalmopathy, urinary infection, inflammation, and rheumatism
Cancer cell lines such as NCI-H1703, MDA-MB-231, HeLa, 143B, PC-3, MCF-7, HepG2, A549, SKOV3, and HT29 were considerably inhibited by P. emblica, P. urinaria, P. polyphyllus, P. watsonii, and P. pulcher [57, 68, 302,303,304,305,306,307,308,309]
Summary
Phyllanthus (Euphorbiaceae) is a large genus and widely distributed in tropical and subtropical zones like tropical Africa, tropical America, Asia, and Oceania. This genus, consisting of more than 700 species, can be classified into 11 subgenuses [1, 2]. Genus Phyllanthus has been employed as herbal drugs for a long time in China, India, Brazil, and Southeast Asian countries. In China, herbs and their prescriptions are used to treat hepatitis B, hypertension, dropsy, and sore throat [2] These herbal drugs are employed by local inhabitants of Thailand, Latin America (especially Brazil), and Africa to cure jaundice, renal calculus, and malaria, respectively [5,6,7]. More than three hundred articles were selected from the data taken from SciFinder Scholar database by searching the keyword “Phyllanthus”
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