Title:An Overview of Phytotherapeutic Approaches for the Treatment of Tuberculosis
Volume: 17
Issue: 2
Author(s): Dushyant Sharma and Jaya Parkash Yadav
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Extensively drug resistance (XDR), medicinal plants, multi drug resistance (MDR), Mycobacterium tuberculosis,
phytochemical.
Abstract: Tuberculosis (TB) is highly infectious disease causing morbidity and death. Its causative
organism is a contagious bacterium, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The incidence of tuberculosis is
increasing worldwide due to the emergence of drug resistance bacteria. The resistance is being
developed in Mycobacterium tuberculosis against both the first line as well as the second line drugs
used for the treatment. The tuberculosis control programme is being complicated and failed to get the
desired impact due to the development of multi-drug resistant (MDR) and extensively-drug resistant
(XDR) strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. So, there is a critical requirement to discover and
produce newer anti-TB drugs with unique drug targets. Medicinal plants have been used for curing the
diseases from ancient time. Medicinal plants are the novel sources for the production of alternate
medicines for the treatment of TB caused by MDR and XDR strains. Plants produce a number of
different kinds of secondary metabolites such as Alkaloids, Coumarins, Flavonoids, Polyphenols,
Terpenoids, Quinines, etc. which have antimicrobial activity; thus may be useful in control of
tuberculosis. These compounds do not contribute directly in growth and development but used by the
plants for their defense. On the basis of various sources in the literature, about 72 phytochemicals
constituents responsible for anti tubercular activity isolated from different plants have been explained
along with their structure. Most effective isolated compounds from plants are plumbagin, maritinone, 3,
3’-biplumbagin, aloe emodin, epigallocatechin and umckalin. These phytochemicals are helpful for the
treatment of MDR, XDR type of tuberculosis. This review describes an overview of the current
synthetic medicines used for treatment of TB and the work carried out on anti tubercular plants along
with their phytochemicals.
