Andrographis paniculata is an important medicinal plant containing various bioactive terpenoids and flavonoids. Despite its importance in herbal medicine, no ready-to-use transcript sequence information of this plant is made available in the public data base, this study mainly deals with the sequencing of RNA from A. paniculata leaf using Illumina HiSeq™ 2000 platform followed by the de novo transcriptome assembly. A total of 189.22 million high quality paired reads were generated and 1,70,724 transcripts were predicted in the primary assembly. Secondary assembly generated a transcriptome size of ~88 Mb with 83,800 clustered transcripts. Based on the similarity searches against plant non-redundant protein database, gene ontology, and eukaryotic orthologous groups, 49,363 transcripts were annotated constituting upto 58.91% of the identified unigenes. Annotation of transcripts—using kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes database—revealed 5606 transcripts plausibly involved in 140 pathways including biosynthesis of terpenoids and other secondary metabolites. Transcription factor analysis showed 6767 unique transcripts belonging to 97 different transcription factor families. A total number of 124 CYP450 transcripts belonging to seven divergent clans have been identified. Transcriptome revealed 146 different transcripts coding for enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of terpenoids of which 35 contained terpene synthase motifs. This study also revealed 32,341 simple sequence repeats (SSRs) in 23,168 transcripts. Assembled sequences of transcriptome of A. paniculata generated in this study are made available, for the first time, in the TSA database, which provides useful information for functional and comparative genomic analysis besides identification of key enzymes involved in the various pathways of secondary metabolism.

Andrographis nallamalayana is being widely used as tribal medicine in the treatment of leucoderma and mouth ulcers. Chemical profiling of methanolic extract of the whole plant (PE), using GC-MS and LC-MS, revealed the presence of compounds viz. α-tocopherol, β-sitosterol, tetradecanoic acid, monostearin, flavones/flavanones and their glycosides, chromones, etc. Topical application of imiquimod on the dorsal portion of male BALB/C mice resulted in the development of psoriatic symptoms (erythema, scaling, thickening and folding) with a mean disease activity index (DAI) of >7.0. Topical treatment with 100-μL PE (~6.4%/12.8%) formulations, for 12-days, resulted in the alleviation of disease symptoms. Compared to water-based formulations, emu oil-based formulation, PE400EO was found more effective in reducing the mean DAI (>84%), keratinocyte count (>65%) (p < 0.01) and interleukin-22 (~70%) (p < 0.05). We report, for the first time, anti-psoriatic activity of A. nallamalayana having great potential in developing a potent phytomedicine against psoriasis.

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The genus Andrographis includes diverse species of medicinal importance. The present study for the first time unravels the chemical profiling and medicinal importance of an unexplored species, Andrographis glandulosa. LC-MS analysis of A. glandulosa methanolic extract disclosed it as a rich source of flavonoids, with 8 minor peaks and 2 major peaks (m/z 285.0749 and 283.0595). NMR and ESI-MS/MS analyses confirmed the major peaks as (R) 2',5-dihydroxy-7-methoxyflavanone and 2',5-dihydroxy-7-methoxyflavone. Purified compounds exhibited antiproliferative activity on 3 cancer cell lines (HeLa, MIA PaCa and U-87) with IC50 39.81–46.21 µM for flavanone, and 20.84–25.16 µM for flavone. IC50 values of flavone are on a par with that of the positive control quercetin (21.78–26.82 µM). HeLa cells treated with 117 µM flavanone showed a loss of MMP (~55% of cells) resulting in apoptosis (~51% of cells). Treatment with 80 µM flavone caused a loss of MMP (~88% of cells) and induced apoptosis in ~70% of cells proving its efficacy over flavanone. Purified flavonoids exhibited cytotoxicity by disrupting mitochondrial membrane, caspase 3 activation and apoptosis. Purified flavonoids appear as promising natural products for developing cancer therapeutics.