Uraria picta: A review on its ethnobotany, bioactive compounds, pharmacology and commercial relevance

Abstract

Uraria picta is a woody herb found throughout Asia, Africa and Australia. It has been long known to possess significant ethnomedicinal value. It is a key ingredient of more than a hundred Ayurvedic formulations and an important component of many patents in countries like India, China, Japan and USA. U. picta is commercially important and in high demand in India and Western African countries. As a consequence, U. picta has now been classified as a rare, endangered and threatened (RET) species in India. Biochemical analysis of different plant parts of U. picta and its tissue culture has shown that it is a valuable source of several bioactive phytochemicals among which Rhoifolin is the most recognized. In this work, relevant details on ethnobotany, bioactive compounds, pharmacology, toxicology, tissue culture and commercial applicability U. picta were retrieved from Google Scholar, Scopus, SpringerLink, Pubmed and Science Direct from 1950 to 2022. The seeds have a good balance of essential amino acids and the proportion of these amino acids is almost on par with that of nutritionally important common legumes and cereals. Given its status as an endangered species a number of reports have now appeared on methods of micropropagation of the plant as a means for conservation. The plant possesses several medicinal properties viz., anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, antimicrobial, etc. These studies mainly focus on the plant extract and not on the individual metabolites. Also, there is a dearth of reports on the mechanism of action of phytochemicals at the molecular levels. Thus, we provide perspective useful for bridging the gap that remains in the scientific validation of traditional uses of the plant through proper objectives and experimentation to explore novel therapeutic leads from U. picta with industrial viability. We also recommend the use of metabolic engineering and plant tissue culture (using elicitors and precursors) as approaches to increase the production of important bioactive molecules from this plant.