Arum Palaestinum Case Study

ABSTRACT

Scientists continue to search for and conserve little-known plants those whose medicinal properties have become crucial in the fight against diseases. Moreover, lessons from folk medicine, indigenous knowledge and Chinese medicine on crude extracts points to possible finding of novel promising and strong pharmaceutically bioactive constituents. Arum palaestinum, commonly known as Black Calla Lily, is one of the important medicinal plants belonging to family Araceae which has not been well studied. Little is known about its pharmaceutically bioactive substances and effective conservation through the use of biotechnology so; it is selected and reviewed for its phytochemical analysis and its biological activities. Besides, the tissue
During the last few decades plant cell and tissue culture have arisen as a new technique in plant biology for many purposes, among them genetic germplasm conservation and in vitro production of bioactive substances used in pharmaceutical industries [9]. Herbal medicines are generally perceived as safe products [10] and some of these safe therapies are used to treat liver diseases, diabetes and jaundice [11]. In the search for alternatives to traditional agriculture in the industrial production of bioactive plant metabolites, biotechnological techniques specifically, plant tissue cultures are found to have potential in the production of desirable medicinal compounds from plants
Biological investigation of Arum palaestinum
6.1. Antioxidant activity
The antioxidant activity of the ethyl acetate fraction of A. palaestinum characterized by its strong DPPH free radical scavenging activity (SC50 3.1 ±0.82 μg/mL) [4]. Both of the aqueous and ethanol extracts had remarkable antioxidant activities about 43.1, 12.7%, respectively [39]. Recently, the antioxidant activity of the ethanol extracts from different parts of six plants including A. palaestinum is evaluated and showed that T. creticum extract with IC50 = 83 µg/ml has an efficient scavenger of O2 followed by M. syriaca, C. capitatus, T. capitatum, A. palaestinum and U. pilulifera [40].
In addition, 21 species collected from different Jordanian localities including A. palaestinum are evaluated for their antioxidant activity and showed that the DPPH-TEAC of the methanol extract of the studied taxa were varied from 4.1 to 365.0 mg/g dw versus 0.6 to 267.0 mg g-1 in aqueous extracts and A. palaestinum leaves gave moderate activity (DPPH-TEAC range 20-80 mg g-1) and showed that the potential rule in radical scavenging of these plant`s extracts and their antioxidant activity agreed with their use as a traditional anti-diabetic agents by the Jordanian population