GENUS LEPIDAGATHIS (ACANTHACEAE): REVIEW OF ITS ETHANOBOTANY, PHYTOCHEMISTRY AND PHARMACOLOGICAL POTENTIAL Review Article SUTHA PONNUSAMY 1* , SANGAMESWARAN BALAKRISHNAN 2 1 The Tamil Nadu Dr M. G. R Medical University, Guindy, Chennai-600032, TN, India. 2 HOD Department of Pharmacognosy, SSM College of Pharmacy, Erode-638312, TN, India. Email: suthaharini3186@gmail.com Received: 07 Dec 2022, Revised and Accepted: 03 Mar 2023 ABSTRACT Almost all societies have employed medicinal plants as a source of medicine. Due to their natural origin, low cost, and lack of side effects, traditional medicinal plants have become increasingly popular over the past few decades. The Vedas and the Bible both mention the common usage of herbal medicines and healthcare products. People have used medicinal plants for thousands of years to flavour and preserve food, cure health problems, and prevent disease. Acanthaceae plant species are valued for their cultural and economic significance in horticulture and traditional medicine worldwide due to their wide range of medicinal characteristics. It was discovered that 87% of therapeutic drugs were made from naturally occurring substances taken from plants. In addition to being utilized as food, medicine, or ornamentals, plant species in this family also contain a variety of vital secondary metabolites, such as alkaloids, terpenoids, tannins, quinones, and flavonoids. The ethnopharmacological drugs of this class are utilised in many South and East Asian countries. According to some studies, Acanthaceae may possess antiviral, antifungal, cytotoxic, anti- inflammatory, antipyretic, hepatoprotective, immunomodulatory, and antiplatelet aggregation properties. The current review identifies some salient traits of a few significant genera in this family and explores how they are used in both traditional and creative ways in modern society. By keeping these factors in mind, the current study will be helpful for future research and clinical trials in the study of some new significant plant species that belong to this significant family. Keywords: Acanthaceae, Pharmacology, Phytochemistry © 2023 The Authors. Published by Innovare Academic Sciences Pvt Ltd. This is an open-access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.22159/ijpps.2023v15i5.47280. Journal homepage: https://innovareacademics.in/journals/index.php/ijpps. INTRODUCTION Due to the increasing interest in using traditional medicine, it is essential to address some of the troubling issues, such as the general lack of research, the lack of evidence for the safety, effectiveness, and high quality of natural remedies, the lack of patent rights for traditional medicines, and the requirement to maximize and integrate the use of natural products as potential sources of remedies in primary healthcare [1]. Plants have been a significant source of sustenance and medicine since the dawn of human civilization. Around 80% of the world's population still relies on medicinal plants to fill the gap in health, and folk medicine practitioners have strong roots in society [2]. Gurib-Fakim remarked in 2006 that modern methods of using medicinal plants to make usable pharmaceuticals have significantly improved the conventional medical system. Studying ethnobotanical materials opened doors for the investigation of novel groups of chemicals [3]. Kamboj A reported in 2012 that due to their natural origins and lack of negative side effects, traditional herbal remedies have been used extensively for thousands of years [4]. According to Inoue and Crawford's 2014 report, medicinal plants serve as sources for the medications used to treat ailments; hence their demand is rising daily. Trade sparked the globalization of herbal remedies, revealing the mystery of underlying metabolic mechanisms, new concepts, diseases, and settlements, as well as native hostility [5]. According to Barnes et al. (2008) and Oh et al. (2014), the domestic cultivation of medicinal plants is a subject of growing public interest. Due to improved methods and widespread knowledge of effective medicinal plant harvesting among growers, income levels have risen. Similar to this, natural substance research is thriving to make plants widely accessible for treating a variety of disorders [6, 7]. According to Singh V et al. (2017), India contains an estimated 4.5 million plant species, but only between 250,000 and 500,000 of these have been studied for their phytochemical content's potential to have biological or pharmacological effects [8]. Neelam Bamola et al. reported in 2018 that pharmaceutical companies may use bioactive components or plant extracts to create new formulations for the development of novel medications for the treatment of various disorders. The secondary metabolites shield the cells from the harm that unstable molecules named free radicals [9]. In 2017, Refaz Ahmad Dar et al. reviewed how understanding plant toxicity and defending people and animals against natural poisons were two benefits of studying medicinal plants. The synthesis of secondary metabolites by plants gives them their therapeutic properties. With this in mind, research in natural product chemistry has seen an increase in attention. Therapeutic needs, the remarkable diversity of chemical structure and biological activities of naturally occurring secondary metabolites, the use of novel bioactive natural compounds as biochemical probes, the development of novel and sensitive methods to detect biologically active natural products, improved methods to isolate, purify, and structurally characterize these active constituents, and advanced techniques to characterize these active constituents are some of the reasons for this interest [10]. Cancer is an abnormal kind of tissue growth in which cells divide uncontrolled and largely on their own, leading to a gradual increase in the number of dividing cells. It is a significant global public health concern and the second-leading cause of death worldwide. There are more than a hundred different types of cancer [58]. Cancer may develop in any portion of the body at any time and at any age; it is both uncontrollable and incurable. It results from the interaction of numerous poorly understood genetic and environmental variables [11]. The Cancer-related fatalities are expected to rise from 7.1 million in 2002 to 11.5 million in 2030 on a global scale [12]. The care of cancer patients has unquestionably improved with the development of contemporary drug-targeted therapies. Advanced cancer with metastases, however, is still incurable. Therefore, it is evident that ongoing research into safer and more efficient chemoprevention and therapy is required to increase efficiency and reduce treatment costs for cancer care [13]. Depending on the stage, different kinds of options are available, such as surgery, organ transplantation, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, biological International Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Print ISSN: 2656-0097 | Online ISSN: 0975-1491 Vol 15, Issue 5, 2023