Phytochemical and pharmacological potential of Crotalaria L. – a review

Abstract

Medicinal plants are important source of therapeutic drugs. This review article focused on the Crotalaria genus. The objective of this research was to find out the potential therapeutic activities of some of the important species of Crotalaria genus. It is a large family of plants containing over 600 plants having various ranges of activity for numerous disease conditions. Phytochemicals of these plants have shown important therapeutic activities such as; anticancer, antitumor, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, anti-toxic, gastroprotective activity etc. However, the plants of this family also contain toxic alkaloids such as pyrrolidazone which is present in 60% of the plants of this family. This alkaloid was observed to cause death in several animal species but also was found to have potential against mutagenic growth. Methodology of this review article was literature review from different authentic sources of journals. The result of the study is that species of crotalaria genus can be a promising area of therapeutics.