Easwar Rao, D: Medicinal Properties of Shorea robusta Flower

In spite of tremendous development in the field of synthetic drugs during recent era, they found to have some or other side effects, whereas plants still hold their own unique place, without having side effects. Therefore, the present study has been undertaken to investigate the Antimicrobial activity, Anti-inflammatory activity, Antioxidant activity, Phytochemical analysis and identification of responsible compound in the gynoecia of Shorea robusta. Ethyl acetate extract of gynoecia of S. robusta showed significant inhibitory activity on different bacterial species. The anti-inflammatory activity was studied using carrageenan-induced rat paw oedema model and 5-lipoxygenase assay in which S. robusta has shown significant activity. Antioxidant capacity of S. robusta is evaluated using DPPH, ABTS, FRAP & Superoxide scavenging activity, of which ABTS assay gave the best result. Preliminary phytochemical analysis demonstrated that tannins, flavonoids, steroids and cardiac glycosides may be responsible for these activities. Further investigations are needed to identify potential bio active compounds in S. robusta gynoecia which can be applied for development of new drugs.