Zingiberaceae of Northen Coastal Odisha A study on the taxonomy ethnomedicinal use pharmacognosy and in vitro conservation prospects

Abstract

Zingiberaceae is the largest family of the order Zingiberales. Apart from their traditional use as spices, food, ethnomedicine, dyes, perfume etc., they have got a huge future potential in new drug development due to their antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, anti-cancer and antioxidant characteristics. In the present study, ten species of the family have been identified in this study including C.amada Roxb., C. angustifolia Roxb., C. aromatica Salisb., C.caesia Roxb., C. Longa L., H. coronarium Koenig., K. galanga L., Z. montanum (Koenig.) Link ex A. Dietr., Z. officinale Rosco. Z. zerumbet (L.) Smith. The ethanolic extract from the dried rhizome powder of these species have been analysed by GCMS to study the presence of different bioactive compounds. Among all the studied species against the Gram-positive bacteria Staphylococcus aureus, Curcuma longa exhibited largest zone of inhibition (1.46±0.05) cm and against the gram-negative bacteria E. coli the extract of Zingiber zerumbet exhibited the largest zone of inhibition (1.66 ± 0.2) cm. Both the Gram positive and Gram-negative test bacteria were least sensitive to the extract of Curcuma amada. The anti-oxidant assay was carried out by the DPPH free radical scavenging assay. Among these all Zingiberaceae Curcuma longa showed the high percentage of anti-oxidant capacity (92.87834%) followed by Z. zerumbet (81.0089%), K. galanga (81.60237%), Z. montanum (79. 52522%), H. coronarium (79.52522%), Z. officinale (77. 74481%), C. amada (71.81009%), C. angustifolia (71. 21662%) and C. caesia (62. 0178 %). The tissue culture technique was optimized to develop plantlets without involving callus formation, so that regeneration time and cross contamination issues can be minimized. The plantlets were regenerated in quite less time duration with supplementation of equimolar ratio of NAA and BAP at a lower concentration (1 µM each) in the MS medium. The plantlets regenerated under these low plant growth regulators supplementations were robust enough to demonstra