Medicinal plant: Garcinia spp.

Garcinia is a tropical fruit tree with promising pharmacological properties. This review presents an overview of the bioactive compounds derivative from Garcinia fruits and their biological activities for promoting human health as food and medicine. Keywords— Medicinal plant, Garcinia spp., Therapeutic properties, phytochemical properties.


INTRODUCTION
Plants are considered as the great reservoir of structurally diverse bioactive molecules such as phenolics, terpenoids, carotenoids, anthocyanins and flavonoids which are having therapeutic values and are useful in the treatment of various ailments. Now-a-days these bioactive molecules are widely used in the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries (Hosakatte et al., 2018).
Garcinia is a polygamous tropical tree or shrub under Clusiaceae family. It consists of 250 species, out of which about 30 species are indigenous to India. Garcinia pedunculata (Amlavethasa), G. cowa, and G.Morella (Indian gamboge) are grown in North-Eastern parts of India and Andaman Islands (Negi et al.,2008;Sharma and Devi,2015;Murthy et al., 2020). Garcinia are rich source of nutrients, minerals, vitamins, and dietary fibers. It has the folklore claims such as rejuvenator, cardio tonic, asthma, obesity and arthritis. The mature fruit is eaten cooked or raw and also for pickle preparation.
Garcinia pedunculata is an evergreen tree. The tree is endemic to the south eastern regions of Asia such as parts of Myanmar and North-Eastern parts of India. The tree has a fluted trunk with short spreading branches. Leaves are lanceolate with prominent mid ribs. Male flowers are light green in sparsely flowered panicles, the female flowers are solitary. The fruit is round with a diameter ranging between 8cm and 12cm. It has a juicy interior with edible arils. The mature G. pedunculata fruit is greenish yellow and is consumed as a vegetable.

II. MEDICINAL PROPERTIES OF GARCINIA
The fruits of Garcinia have been used since ancient times in traditional medicinal practices. These species provide a rich natural source of bioactive compounds with relevant therapeutic properties and anti-inflammatory effects, for the treatment of skin disorders, wounds, ulcers, dysentery, pain, infections, fever, cough, bronchitis, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, obesity and having antioxidant, antiaflatoxigenic anti-inflammatory, leishmanicidal, and antiprotozoal activities (

IV. INDUSTRIAL RELEVANCE
This traditional medicines are assuming greater important because of its effective, safer, locally available and no side effects and more reliable medicine than synthetically produced drugs. Garcinia extracts can be utilized as nutraceuticals and as food biopreservatives which could be developed into value added products or medicine (Acuna

V. CONCLUSION
Though the fruits of G. cowa and G. pedunculata are underutilized, recent year the interests in research activities in the fields of chemistry and pharmacology has arisen in exploiting on the fruit species. The advanced technology for isolation of the bioactive compounds from plants is very important as it could help in structural modifications of the synthetic products from the fruits. Based on the mechanism and mode of action of these plants it is confirmed the curative and therapeutic effectiveness of the plant. Hence, much research effort on crop improvement and physiologically active components is needed.