BIO ASSAY GUIDED EVALUATION OF HERBAL DRUGS AND MEDICINAL PLANTS

Swapna.G*, Shaheeda Sultana, Sai Srilakshmi,

Swapna Priya, V.Sirisha

ABSTRACT

Many important drugs are derived from compounds originally discovered in plants,and there is now increasing interest in searching for new therapeutically useful molecules from natural sources.The naturally occurring compound will, in all likelihood, only provide the starting point for development of analogues,but the most important step in the discovery process is the identification of this source of interesting biological activity. Several approaches to discovery of activities are out lined below.The ethinobotanical route,Bioassay guided serendipity,Straight serendipity,Exploitation of chemotaxonomic knowledge, Investigations based on chemical ecology.The examples are taken from higher plants,but should be remembered that bio activemolecules can be found from many other source of biological material for investigation eg)pteridophytes, fungi, algae, marine organisms and animal venoms .

Keywords: bioassay, herbal drugs, medicinal plants