Ethnobotanical and pharmacological profile with propagation strategies of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Mukia maderaspatana</i> (<span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-IN">L.) M. Roem.–A concise overview </span>

Abstract

<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Mukia maderaspatana</i> (<span style="letter-spacing: -.2pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-IN">L.) M. Roem. (Family-<span style="letter-spacing:-.2pt;mso-ansi-language: EN-IN">Cucurbitaceae) [syn. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Melothria maderaspatana</i> (L.) Cogn.<span style="letter-spacing:-.2pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-IN">] grows common in village hedges and other open habitats and in the disturbed sites of the semi-evergreen and deciduous forests. It is distributed throughout the tropics and subtropics of the Old World<span style="letter-spacing:-.2pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-IN">, where different parts of the plant are being utilized for the health-care needs of human beings and livestock. The leaves and tender shoots are also frequently consumed as a part of the South Indian cuisine. Preclinical animal experiments have substantiated a number of traditional and folkloric medicinal claims, including hypotensive, hypolipidemic, hepatoprotective, hypoglycaemic, immunomodulatory, antimicrobial, <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;mso-bidi-font-style:italic">antiplatelet-aggregation, <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">antiulcer, anxiolytic<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"> </i>and local anaesthetic characteristics of the plant extracts. Encouraging results have emerged from clinical investigations also as a chemoprotective plant in subjects suffering from hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia and rheumatoid arthritis. The present review aims to offer a concise pioneering account of (i) the ethnomedical uses of the leaves, tender shoots, stem, fruits and roots of the drug-plant among various traditional communities inhabiting different parts of the world, (ii) the motivating outcome of the preclinical and clinical investigations of the plant extracts and (iii) progress attained in the techniques of propagation of this potentially useful indigenous functional food plant which is currently tending to transform as an endangered taxon.

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