Ethnopharmacognosical Study on A Southeast Asian Aurantioideae Medicinal Plant Murraya paniculata: Correlation between Its Chemical Diversity and Medicinal Use in Traditional Medicine

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A rutaceous medium-size tree "Murraya paniculata " widely occurs in either subtropics or tropics throughout Asia and has found wide medicinal use in this region. This researcher presumed that multivalent uses of this medicinal plant in Asian folk medicine are correlated to diversity of its morphological and chemical properties arising from infra-specific differentiation of the species due to wide phytogeographical distribution, and conducted the corresponding research in order to make clear morphological and chemical diversity of "M paniculata" and hereby reconstruct taxonomy of this species and its allies. Detailed morphological studies on "M paniculata" by inspecting specimens preserved at both Philippine National Museum, Manila, Philippines and Herbarium Bogoriense, Bogor, Indonesia, as well as those prepared from samples collected in Nansei Islands lead to the following conclusions: (1) those occurring in areas extending from Nansei Islands to Taiwan and south mainland China can be … More distinguished as M. exotica based on morphology of leaflets and fruits; (2) what have been considered to be an emdemic variety to Lan Yu, Taiwan, as var. omphalocarpa are morphologically identical to those "occurring in Philippines and its southern neighbors. The synonymity of var. omphalocarpa to the mother species (M. paniculata) was further substantiated by chemical investigation on Philippine species, which revealed that both Philippine and Lan Yu species *re chemically homologous. A comprehensive analysis of prenylcoumarins that have been reported under the name of both M. exotica and M paniculata furnished a hypothesis that they originate biogenetically from the corresponding epoxycoumarins such as sibiricin, gleinadiene epoxide, meranzin and phebalosin, and a group of coumarins arising from each of the above epoxides are expediently designated as A_1 A_2, B_1 and B_2 types, respectively. According to this method, those of Nansei Islands and its vicinity have B_1B_2 type coumarins whereas those of Philippines and its southern neighbors have AB_2 type coumarins, which is in good accordance with results of morphological study. Chemical study on endemic variety (var. zollingeri) occurring in Timor, Indonesia was also conducted and revealed that this variety contains only B2 type coumarins. The uniqueness in chemical property of this variety will be in line with its unique morphological property. About seventy constituents obtained so far from Murraya species were also subjected to various bioassays including anti-oxidant activity in order to clarify whether chemical diversity of this plant furnishes multivalency of use as folk medicine, which were prospected from ethnopharmacognosical viewpoints. Less