Cassia auriculata and its role in infection / inflammation: A close look on future drug discovery

The herbal plants contain various active compounds which have the ability to treat several human diseases without any side effects like cancer chemotherapeutic drugs used currently. It is reported that majority of the presently used drugs are derived from natural resources like plants or their products and hence, there is an urgent need to search for novel drugs from natural resources. Accordingly, the present study was designed to exploit an ethnomedicinally important plant Cassia auriculata Linn. for the identification of its phytoconstituents responsible for various properties such as antioxidant, anti-microbial and anti-diabetic activities. Different extracts of the plant were subjected to chromatographic techniques like high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), gas chromatography, and mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis to acquire the fingerprint of the phytoconstituents present in the plant. The extracts were analyzed by Ultra Violet-Visible (UV-Visible) and Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR). The efficacy of the extracts was examined through different in vitro assay methods. The GC-MS study exhibited the occurrence of 48 phytoconstituents in all the tested extracts and the HPLC study revealed the presence of quercetin. Different in vitro evaluations of the plant revealed that both ethyl acetate (DPPH-IC₅₀: 340.9 μg/ml) and ethanol fractions (DPPH-IC₅₀: 205.5 μg/ml) exhibited a potent activity. Hence, using the above study, novel potent antimicrobial and anti-diabetic principles from C. auriculata can be formulated in the future towards the clinical progress of therapeutic remedies against these ailments.