Abstract
A prevalent medical condition in the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world, Leishmaniasis; due to the unavailability of effective drugs, caters the need for its eradication and therapeutic control. Modern-day pentavalent antimonials such as Sodium Stibogluconate, Miltefosine used for disease treatment are costly and have low efficacy, apart from triggering severe side effects after prolonged treatment. Plants offer active natural components that have miraculous medicinal properties such as antimicrobial, antimalarial, and even antileishmanial. In this review, research articles on Indian medicinal plants effective against visceral leishmaniasis causal organism, Leishmania donovani, from several renowned domains from 1900s to 20th century were thoroughly studied and the results discussed. Among the 16 plant families from over 50 articles, Piperaceae has been found to treasure plant species with potent leishmanicidal chemical constituents, followed by Meliaceae. The review highlights the plant derived biologically active extracts, essential oils, and isolated compounds effective against the parasite both in vitro and in vivo. While Plumbago zeylanica was found to be the most effective in vitro, momordicatin from Momordica charantia lead to 100% parasite clearance at 10 mg/kg body weight dosage in infected hamsters. The course of study revealed that apart from directly inhibiting parasite growth, plant extracts also led to phosphatidylserine externalization, DNA fragmentation, cell cycle arrest and a significant increase in ROS and pro- inflammatory cytokines expression as well. This article can be further utilized for the selection of naturally derived drugs for clinical trials and their successful use as effective anti-leishmanial medicines.
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