Vol 12, Issue 5, 2019 Online - 2455-3891 Print - 0974-2441 PHARMACOGNOSTIC STUDIES ON FLOWERS OF DREGEA VOLUBILIS: EVALUATION FOR AUTHENTICATION AND STANDARDIZATION BHASKAR DAS 1 , ARNAB DE 1 , PIU DAS 1 , AMALESH NANDA 2 , AMALESH SAMANTA 1 * 1 Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. 2 Department of Biotechnology, National Institute of Technology, Arunachal Pradesh, India. Email: asamanta61@yahoo.co.in Received: 01 February 2019, Revised and Accepted: 19 March 2019 ABSTRACT Objective: The various parts of Dregea volubilis (Family: Apocynaceae), locally known as Jukti (Bengali), are commonly used in Indian system of medicine to treat various ailments such as inflammation, piles, leukoderma, asthma, and tumors. Literature review suggested that there has been no detailed work on systemic pharmacognostic and phytochemical studies done on the flowers of the plant. The present study is aimed to lay down quality control parameters for D. volubilis flowers to confirm its identity, quality, and purity. Methods: The present work was designed to study detailed organoleptic, histological, quantitative standards, physicochemical, spectroscopic, and chromatographic characteristics of the flowers of D. volubilis. Results: The total ash, acid insoluble ash, water soluble ash, loss on drying, water, and alcohol soluble extractive values were found to be 11.767±0.130% (w/w), 1.287±0.106% (w/w), 9.140±0.344% (w/w), 14.110±0.061% (w/w), 21.600±0.133% (w/v), and 9.603±0.104% (w/v), respectively. Phytochemical screening of different extracts showed the presence of carbohydrates, proteins, amino acids, steroids, glycosides, alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins, and phenolics. The chromatographic study revealed the presence of rhamnose (103.229±4.994 µg/g), fructose (738.670±25.714 µg/g), glucose (285.532±24.465 µg/g), and maltose (49.082±5.206 µg/g). Conclusion: The characterization parameters of the present study may serve as a reference standard for proper authentication, identification and for distinguishing the plant from its adulterants. Keywords: Dregea volubilis, Organoleptic, Phytochemistry, High-performance liquid chromatography, Fourier transform infrared. INTRODUCTION Herbal medicines play an important role in the health-care system to alleviate and treat diseases. There is a great demand for medicinal plants in the herbal industry due to its health beneficiary properties with multi-dimensional chemical structures. Standardization of the medicinal plants is essential to confirm the authenticity and quality to avoid deliberate adulteration and substitution [1]. Dregea, a genus of vines, is a rich source of steroidal pregnanes with potential biological activities [2]. Dregea volubilis (L.f.) Benth. ex Hook.f. (Synonym: Wattakaka volubilis (L.f.) Stapf., Marsdenia volubilis (L.f.) Cooke) belongs to the kingdom of Plantae, subfamily of Apocynoideae, family of Apocynaceae, order of Gentianales, series of Bicarpellatae, subclass of Gamopetalae, class of Dicotyledons and are distributed widely in the tropical zone and South East Asia [3]. D. volubilis, a large twining perennial shrub, grows as a woody climber having woody vines and is scattered throughout the India and Car-Nicobar ascending to an altitude of 1500 m [4]. The plant blooms between March and April. The young branches of the plant are green, slender, and smooth; the older branches are gray, very long, and glabrous, often with lenticels or small black dots. Leaves are broadly ovate or somewhat rounded, sub-orbicular, acuminate, 7.5–15 cm long, 5–10 cm wide. Flowers are green or pale green, about 1 cm in a radius, bisexual and sweet-scented in a drooping umbel. Follicles are usually two, slightly tapering to a very blunt point, glabrous, and striated. The seeds are elliptic, concave, flattened, smooth, and shining. Different parts of the plant have been traditionally used in Ayurveda in India for the treatment of various ailments such as asthma, inflammation, tumors, piles, leukoderma, application to boils, rat bite, and urinary discharge [5]. The vernacular names of the medicinally important plant are Jukti (Bengali), Akadbel (Hindi), Harandodi (Marathi), Velipparuthi (Malayalam), Dudhipaala (Telugu), Koti-p-palai (Tamil), Dugdhive (Kannada), Dudghika (Oriya), Khamal lata (Assamese), Kadvo kharkhodo (Gujarati), and Hemajivanti (Sanskrit). The flowers of D. volubilis are eaten as a seasonal vegetable in early summer with bitter esthetic principles. Flowers of the plant are a rich source of biologically active phytochemicals and were reported to contain volubiloside A, volubiloside B, volubiloside C, dregealol, volubilogenone, volubilol, drevogenin D, iso-drevogenin P, 17α-marsdenin, dregeanin, vicenin-2, vitexin, isovitexin, isoorientin, rutin, quercetin, luteolin, apigenin, gallic acid, ferulic acid, ellagic acid, and cinnamic acid [6-9]. Antioxidant and antidiabetic activities of hydroalcoholic extract of the flowers of the plant were reported earlier by the present authors [9]. In spite of a lot of attention to health beneficiary effects, flowers of D. volubilis have been less explored pharmacognostically. A detailed study on the structural morphology and other physicochemical parameters of the flowers of D. volubilis are required. The present study is aimed to evaluate the flowers to fix the pharmacognostical parameters for proper identification, authentication, and quality standardization of the plant. METHODS Plant material The fresh flowers of D. volubilis were collected in the month of April 2017 from Jaynagar Mazilpur, South 24 Parganas, West Bengal, India. It was taxonomically identified and authenticated by Dr. V.P. Prasad, Central National Herbarium, Botanical Survey of India, Botanical Garden, Howrah, West Bengal, India. A voucher specimen of the plant was kept at Division of Microbiology and Biotechnology, Department © 2019 The Authors. Published by Innovare Academic Sciences Pvt Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4. 0/) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22159/ajpcr.2019.v12i5.32257 Research Article