Micropropagation and antidiabetic effect of andrographis lineata wall ex nees an endemic medicinal plant

Abstract

Andrographis lineata Wall.ex.Nees an endemic medicinal plant of South India has been widely used as an ancient folklore medicine for the treatment of diabetes by the tribal s of Kolli hills of Nammakal district, Tamilnadu, India. Till now there was no scientific documentation pertaining to the active principle for its antidiabetic effect. Hence, an attempt was made to scientifically investigate the diabetic potentiality of this medicinal herb. To avoid batch to batch variation and to obtain uniform characteristic features of the plant material (phytochemicals), micropropagation techniques was employed. BAP (1.5 mg/l) supplemented with AdS (30 mg/l) produced maximum number of shoots with 25.7±0.11 shoots/explant in the shoot tip explants where as the nodal explants produced only 15.0±0.19 shoots/explant. Bioactivity based screening (lipogenesis) was performed in the isolated fractions (I to V) of the EtALL extract. The fraction IV (chloroform: methanol (70:30)) was found to possess significant lipogenic activity. The selected fraction (fraction IV) was further purified and subjected to spectral analysis. The bioactive compound for the antidiabetic principle was identified as Dimethyl 3, 3 , 4, 4 -tetrahydroxy- and#948;-truxinate (DTand#948;T). Further evaluation of bioactive principle was carried out by gene expression profiling of PPAR-and#947; and C/EBP-and#945; for adipocytes differentiation. The DTand#948;T (active principle) decreased fat accumulation by inhibiting the expression of PPAR-and#947; and C/EBP-and#947; at 25and#956;g/ml. Molecular docking studies suggested that the DTand#948;T was capable of binding with PPAR-and#947; and C/EBP-and#945;, effectively than rosiglitazone (standard drug). Hence, DTand#948;T may be considered as a lead molecule in developing target based antidiabetic drugs. newline newline newline