Nyctanthes Arbor-Tristis and its Role in the Alleviation of Arthritic Pain: A Review

Background: A plant is a reservoir of potentially useful active chemical entities which act as drugs as well as intermediates for the discovery of newer molecules and provide newer leads for modern drug synthesis. The demand for new compounds in the field of medicine and biotechnology is centuries old and with a rise in chronic diseases and resistance to existing drugs in the field of anti-infective agents, the chemicals obtained from plant sources have been an area of attraction. The whole plant has possessed multiple pharmacological activities. This is scientifically established by in-vivo and in-vitro studies. Methods: Various electronic databases such as PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus and Google were searched to collect the data of the present review. All the collected information is categorized into different sections as per the aim of the paper. Results: Fifty-six research and review papers have been studied and were included in this review article. After a detailed study, we provide a significant description of various phytochemicals present in Nyctanthes arbor-tristis Linn., which is responsible for various pharmacological activities. Twenty of studied articles gives a general introduction and ethnobotanical information about the plant, two papers contained microscopic detail of leaf and fruit. Twenty papers contained information about the phytoconstituents present in different parts of Nyctanthes arbor-tristis plant and fourteen articles reported pharmacological activities like antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiarthritic, antimicrobial and immunobiotic activity. Conclusion: This review explores the published research work comprising the ethnobotanical description of the subjected plant, distribution, phytochemical profile, and arthritis-related pharmacological activities.