Phytochemistry, Ethnobotany and Pharmacological Uses of Tinospora cordifolia with Special Reference to SARS-COV-2

Abstract

Medicinal plants or medicinal herbs possess therapeutic properties or exert beneficial pharmacological effects on human. From time immemorial, people have been using various medicinal plants without even knowing their phytochemistry and pharmacological properties as a medicine for treating numerous ailments. As technology developed and upgraded, people used to screen out various phytoconstituents as well as evaluate their basic pharmacological properties. Tinospora cordifolia is a medicinal herb which is commonly known as Giloy belong to family menispermaceae. It can also be found in places like Africa, China, South-East Asia, Indo-Malaya region and Australia. Traditionally, people use this herb as prominent food materials due to their higher nutraceutical value and various healing properties. For phytochemical investigation, extraction of whole plant is preferable whereas most of the phytochemical are found to be present in leaves. Various potent phytochemicals are found in this herb such as tinosponone, tinocordiside, tinosporaside, cordifoliside, β-sitosterol, mekisterone A, etc. which are belong to class of alkaloids, sesquiterpenoids, glycosides, steroids, volatile oil, etc. Owing to the presence of these potent compounds, it exhibits wide range of large number of pharmacological activities such as antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal, antioxidant, antidiabetic, anticancer activities, etc. In past two years, SARS-CoV-2 infections has taken life of millions of people across the globe and there were no any vaccine or proper antiviral medicine available to defend this deadly pandemic, hence people were mostly relying on herbal plant therapy. Giloy is one such magical herb which exhibit healing properties in SARS-CoV-2 infected patients. Moreover, in-silico studies have been carried out to determine the binding affinity as well as inhibiting potential of various phytoconstituents of giloy. In this review work, we compiled all the updated information about T. cordifolia as well as emphasizing more on SARS-CoV-2 inhibiting potential.