Diversity of Natural Bioactive Compound in Plant Origin

*Murshida Mollik and Hamidul Islam*

### **Abstract**

Recent studies have claimed that people are now greatly relying on synthetic drug without considering any side effect; however, all the synthetic drugs have been formulated commercially by following the invention of an authentic source of crude drug; hence, people are still directly or indirectly dependent on natural source of medicine. Recently, I have completed a research work on black pepper (*Piper nigrum*), and piperine (in a crystal form) was isolated as a mother bioactive compound from black pepper through a plenty of in vitro investigations. After that, I have experimented some in vitro analysis to evaluate the antioxidant power of that pure compound, and it was found that the crystal compound has strong antioxidant power. After doing some theoretical analysis, it has been identified that piperine may exist in other medicinal plants also, and many plants belonging to the same species can able to show multiple types of biological activities, which actually reflected the diversity of bioactive compounds in nature. People can benefit from different types of bioactive compounds, such as piperine, if we biosysthesize and use them commercially.

**Keywords:** bioactive compound, crystal compound, commercial purpose, diversity, in vitro test, piperine

#### **1. Introduction**

Medicinal plants or herbal medicine has been utilized to prevent and cure diseases since the ancient period of time, and it has played a significant role in drug discovery [1, 2]. The earlier evidences had been declared that the existing medicinal plants were consumed from 60,000 year ago. Recently, a 5000-year-old Sumerian clay slab was invented by utilization of medicinal plants for the manufacture of drug [3]; moreover, the current study is showing that more than 50% of marketed drugs have been derived from medicinal plants [4, 5].

The safety, efficacy, and quality of this active constituents greatly rely on the source, cross-contamination, and simultaneously the formulation procedure of finished products. The popularity of medicinal plants had been raised from fifteenth to seventeenth century, and the descriptions of herbal medicine had started to be available in various languages. In the eighteenth century, a scheme for classifying plant species had been initiated by Linnaeus [6].

Primarily, the medicinal plants were used in casual pharmaceutical preparations such as macerations, infusions, and decoctions; however, in between sixteenth and

eighteenth centuries, the compounded drug was on demand. The early nineteenth century was a crucial point in the development of knowledge about the consumption of medicinal plants and the drug discovery, substantiation, and screening of alkaloids from the poppy as well as quinine, ipecacuanha, pomegranate also under trial. Scientific pharmacy was initiated followed by the isolation of glycosides from other medicinal plants, and the upgradation of chemical methodologies to isolate tannins, saponins, hormones, and vitamins was started [7, 8].

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a steady fall in the therapeutic use of herbal medicines has been noticed. Many authors have claimed that drugs obtained from the medicinal plants may be possessed shortcomings due to degradative action of different types of enzymes. In the early twentieth century, stabilization method for the preparation and utilization of fresh medicinal plants had been proposed. After that, several steps has been taken to cultivate medicinal plants [9] as they have offered more authentic natural sources of active pharmacological ingredients [10].

#### **1.1 Blessings of medicinal plants**

Recently, due to the prominent side effects of updated synthetic drugs and escalating contraindications about their consumptions, a great attempt has been made to enhance the utilization of diverse medicinal plants [11]. Medicinal plants have played a vital and integral role in healthcare system from the earliest period of time, and some diverse types of instances of this blessing are described below [12].

#### **Analgesic:**

Opioids (morphine) can bind with cerebral opioid receptor and can modify the pain sensation by exerting receptor-mediated function and eventually will show analgesic effect [13, 14] and exert their analgesic effect. All the cannabis and cannabinoids had been consumed to relieve pain [15].

#### **Anticancer:**

Medicinal-plant-derived constituents such as vinblastine, vincristine from alkaloids *Vinca rosea* demonstrate anticancer activity [16].

#### **Antihypertensive:**

A plenty of medicinal plants were suggested by the ancient communities for the management of hypertension that may introduce a new area of research on the antihypertensive activity, [17, 18] such as reserpine from *Rauwolfia serpentine*.

#### **Antidiabetic:**

Medicinal plants such as *Acacia arabica*, *Eucalyptus globulus* may improve insulin secretion from pancreatic beta cell, thereby capable of exhibiting antidiabetic property [19].

Besides this overall pharmacological coverage, medicinal plants may have thousands of phytoconstituents, for instances, compound atropine from *Atropa belladonna* exhibits antispasmodic activity, ephidrine from *Ephedra vulgaris* might have bronchodialating effect.

Our present study is to represent the blessings of medicinal plants, which are readily available in our nature. I have already discussed a little bit about diversity of bioactive compounds in the above section, and it actually clarifies that nature may conserve every type of remedy related to the pathological state of human body. Actually, most of marketed drugs were being explored with the help of the concept of biodiversity of medicinal plants. As disease state does not consider any class of people such as rich, poor, middle-class, allergic people (to synthetic drug), suburb, or any city belonging people, so we should have developed our dependency on bioactive

*Diversity of Natural Bioactive Compound in Plant Origin DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.104702*

constituents containing medicinal plants, which will be economically affordable rather than synthetic drug. My research work was related to identifying the medicinal plant having great biological activity, which will be very cheap in source and obviously included to our daily food supplement. I have chosen black pepper (BP) (*Piper nigrum)* shown in **Figure 1** as my research topic where my prime concern was to identify bioactive compound (antioxidant activity containing) and correlate the biodiversity of that compound in nature.

## **1.2 Black pepper**

#### *1.2.1 Scientific name:* Piper nigrum *Linn*

**Figure 1.** *Black pepper (*Piper nigrum*) [20].*

#### *1.2.2 Etymology of black pepper*

The etymological background of black pepper was so complex, some believe that the word pepper has come from old English pipor, Latin pipor, and Sanskrit pippali for "long pepper." Besides this, people were using the word pepper to indicate the unrelated new word chili pepper (genous capsicum) during sixteenth century [21].

#### *1.2.3 History of black pepper*

Black peppercorns were explored stuffed in the nostril of Ramesses II, placed there as a part of the mummification rituals shortly after his death in 1213 BOE [22]. Someone has perceived that the black pepper was used in ancient Egypt, and it arrived in the Nile from south Asia. Black pepper is mainly popular in south Asia, southeast India, and is native to Kerala, a southwestern coast of India [23, 24].
