Phytochemical analysis, antioxidant activities and optimized extraction of embelin from different genotypes of Embelia ribes Burm f.: a woody medicinal climber from Western Ghats of India

Medicinal potential of embelin and its nanoformulations: An update on the molecular mechanism and various applications

Natural herbs have garnered significant research recently as their components target multiple disease signaling pathways, making them highly potential for various disease prevention and treatment. Embelin, a naturally occurring benzoquinone isolated from Embelia ribes, has shown promising biological activities such as antitumor, antidiabetic, anti-oxidant, and antimicrobial. Various mechanisms have been reported, including monitoring genes that synchronize the cell cycle, up-regulating multiple anti-oxidant enzymes, suppressing genes that prevent cell death, influencing transcription factors, and preventing inflammatory biomarkers. However, the hydrophobic nature of embelin leads to poor absorption and limits its therapeutic potential. This review highlights a wide range of nanocarriers used as delivery systems for embelin, including polymeric nanoparticles, liposomes, nanostructured lipid carriers, micelles, nanoemulsion, and metallic nanoparticles. These embelin nanomedicine formulations have been developed in preclinical studies as a possible treatment for many disorders and characterized using various in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo models.

Embelin: A multifaceted anticancer agent with translational potential in targeting tumor progression and metastasis

Embelin, a natural para-benzoquinone product, is derived from plants of the Embelia genus, particularly Embelia ribes Burm.f. A staple in traditional medicinal formulations for centuries, Embelin's pharmacological actions are attributed to the hydroxyl benzoquinone present in its structure. Its therapeutic potential is bolstered by unique physical and chemical properties. Recently, Embelin, recognized as a non-peptidic, cell-permeable small inhibitor of the X-linked inhibitor of apoptosis protein (XIAP), has garnered significant attention for its anticancer activity. It demonstrates various anticancer mechanisms, such as apoptosis induction, cell cycle arrest, and autophagy, in different cancer types. Additionally, Embelin modulates several signal transduction pathways, including NF-κB, PI3Kinase/AKT, and STAT3, effectively inhibiting the proliferation of diverse cancer cell lines. This literature review illuminates the anticancer potential of Embelin, detailing its mechanisms of action and prospective clinical applications, based on relevant scientific literature from the past decade sourced from various electronic databases. See also the Graphical abstract(Fig. 1).

Plants with potential anti-ulcerogenic activity and possible mechanism of actions based on their phyto-constitutional profile

Gastric ulcer, the most common disorder of the digestive tract is formed due to an imbalance between acid and mucus content of the stomach. However, the currently used western therapeutic regimens have many drawbacks like adverse effects, recurrence of gastric ulcers, are expensive, and also, may have interactions with other drugs. Hence, there is a need for effective alternative therapy. Medicinal herbs have been used since ancient times to treat several diseases and are also evidenced to be effective against gastric ulcers. It is also evident that medicinal herbs have been proved to be equally effective or superior as compared to the existing synthetic medicines. In this review, five herbs have been taken into consideration and assumed to be effective against gastric ulcers. Abrus mollis, Korean Thistle (Cirsium japonicum var. maackii), Astralagus complanatus Bunge, Bauhinia monandra, and Embelia ribes Burm f. are the herbs whose data is been collected and reviewed for their potential gastro-protective action. Although, their side effects and toxicity profile need to be further evaluated. Hence, the purpose of this review is to gather evidence of these five medicinal herbs and their probable mechanism of action against gastric ulcers based on their phyto-constitutional profile.

Evaluating genetic diversity of geographically diverse populations of Embelia ribes Burm f., a highly medicinal woody liana from the Western Ghats of India, using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and intersimple sequence repeats (ISSR) markers

BACKGROUND

Embelia ribes Burm f. (Primulaceae) is a medicinal and vulnerable woody liana distributed throughout India. Embelin, a well-recognized active phytoconstituents in berries, is commonly used in ayurvedic formulations. Due to over-exploitation, the status of the plant is vulnerable. Previous studies on this species mainly focused on its phytochemical analysis, which led to overexploitation and loss of the germplasm.

METHODS AND RESULTS

In the present study, 20 RAPD and 18 ISSR markers were employed to assess genetic divergence in 40 genotypes of E. ribes collected from different parts of the Western Ghats of India. In RAPD analysis, all 40 accessions with 20 RAPD primers amplified 282 fragments, with 83.91% average polymorphism and with an average of 14.10 bands per primer. The size of amplicons varied from 200 to 2500 bp. While, ISSR primers produced 203 fragments of which 161 were polymorphic with an average of 11.28 bands per primer with 73.25% average polymorphism. The size of amplicons ranges from 200 to 2500 bp. RAPD and ISSR markers were also assessed by calculating polymorphic information content (PIC) to discriminate the genotypes; the average PIC value for RAPD, ISSR, and combined RAPD + ISSR markers obtained was more than 0.50 suggesting the informativeness of markers. UPGMA analysis based on Jaccard's similarity coefficient for RAPD, ISSR, and RAPD + ISSR data reveals that 40 accessions of E. ribes were depicted in four clusters. The clustering pattern of all individuals in PCoA analysis agreed with the UPGMA dendrograms, which further confirms the genetic relationships explained by cluster analysis. AMOVA analysis of RAPD, ISSR, and combined marker system revealed variation within the population, ranging from 41 to 44%, and among the population, it ranged from 56 to 59%.

CONCLUSION

The present study provides an optimized method for evaluating the genetic diversity of Embelia ribes using RAPD and ISSR markers which are useful for further sustainable utilization and conservation of natural populations in the Western Ghats of India.

Assessing the Impact of Geographical Distribution and Genetic Diversity on Metabolic Profiles of a Medicinal Plant, Embelia ribes Burm. f

The extensive use of Embelia ribes Burm. f. (Embelia) in tribal medicine proclaimed global attention as a promising candidate in complementary and alternative medicine. The knowledge of chemical blends is a prerequisite for the selection of raw materials for herbal medicine formulations; however, the influence of geographical distance and genetic diversity on the metabolome of Embelia fruits is unknown. Therefore, we collected Embelia fruits from four locations across the Western Ghats of India and analyzed the metabolic profile and genotypic diversity of Embelia fruits by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and inter simple sequence repeats (ISSR), respectively. LC-MS/MS analysis yielded 583 compounds; however, the trimmed data resulted in 149 compounds. Further, MS/MS analysis identified 36 compounds, among which we reported 30 compounds for the first time from Embelia. These compounds belong to 11 compound classes that suggest location-specific chemical blends of Embelia fruits. Multivariate analysis showed 94% compound diversity across the accessions. ISSR analysis suggests 95% polymorphism across the accessions. A significant positive correlation (80%) between metabolomics and genotypic data matrices validates the genotype's influence in tuning Embelia's metabolic profiles. We conclude that the chemical profiles of Embelia are location-specific, which can be explored for the selection of herbal trade sustainably.

A comprehensive insight on the biological potential of embelin and its derivatives

Naturally occurring bioactive molecules are known for their diverse biological applications such as antimicrobial, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, and analgesic activities. Also, some of the natural products act as medicinal drugs. Further, bioactive cell-permeable molecule embelin has been reported for its diverse biological activities such as antimalarial, anticancer, and anti-inflammatory in the literature. With the continuation of our research work on biologically active molecules, based on structural activity relationship and docking studies of embelin and its derivatives, we have reported target-specific anticancer and antimalarial activities of embelin and its analogs. Also, it has been reported in many recent research articles that embelin and its derivatives are known to possess medicinal properties. This review mainly highlights recent reports on broad-spectrum biological activities of the embelin and its analogs to date.