ETHNOBOTANY AND PHARMACOGNOSY IN DRUG DISCOVERY

Abstract

This paper examined the role of ethnobotanical knowledge and the pharmacognostic assessment in drug discovery of medicinal plants.  The traditional healers’ interviews and field investigations revealed that there exist 45 different plant species commonly used in the indigenous medicine as a means of infections, inflammation and abnormal metabolism.  The phytochemical analysis proved the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, terpenoids, phenolic compounds, part of which had a high antibacterial and antioxidant in vitro.  Identities of the compounds were confirmed by using HPLC, GC-MS and NMR techniques, and in silico pharmacokinetic studies indicated that a number of the phytoconstituents had good drug-likeness and bioavailability profiles.  The in vivo tests reaffirmed even more that these bioactives can be employed as medications with some extracts capable of acting as equally effectively as conventional medicines.  This ethnobotanical-pharmacognostic synthesis demonstrates the potential utility of traditional medicines that prove to be very useful in drawing new drugs and advocates the application of the potential of ethnopharmacological knowledge to synthesize new drugs in the long-term scale.