Thesium viride A.W.Hill (Santalaceae): Ethnomedicinal Uses, Chemical Constituents and Pharmacological Activities

Thesium viride A.W.Hill (Santalaceae): Ethnomedicinal Uses, Chemical Constituents and Pharmacological Activities

Sani Shehu1, Yushau Musa Hadi1, Uwaisu Iliyasu1, Ahmed Danbala Ahmed2, Maryam Lawal Ammani2

 

  1. Department of Pharmacognosy and Drug Development, Kaduna State University, Kaduna, Nigeria.
  2. Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Kaduna State University, Kaduna, Nigeria.

 

Key words:

Santalaceae, Thesium viride, Ethnomedicinal, Chemical constituents, Pharmacological activities

 

 

 

 

*Corresponding author: sani.shehu@kasu.edu.ng;
DOI:https://doi.org/10.61594/tnpr.v6i1.2025.118

Page No: 24-34
Volume: 6, Issue 1, 2025
Trends in Natural Products Research
Copy Right: NAPREG

Abstract

Medicinal plants have been the foundations of the traditional medicine system for several years and continue to offer mankind new medicines. The importance of ethnomedicinal plants in drug discovery and development cannot be overemphasised. Thesium viride A.W.Hill (Santalaceae) is a hemiparasite subshrub found in wooded Savannah areas widely distributed in Southern Africa, tropical and subtropical Africa, Madagascar, and tropical South America. The aerial part of the plant is used in treating jaundice, liver enlargement, splenomegaly and ulcers. Screening of the plant extract showed that it contains several phytochemical compounds such as steroids and triterpenes, phenolics, flavonoids, alkaloids, and glycosides. Only one compound kaempferide was isolated in its pure form. Literature on T. viride is limited and scanty. However, studies on antimicrobial, antiulcer, antioxidant, hepatoprotective and antiprotozoan were conducted. This review is a compilation of information obtained from scholarly databases, including ResearchGate, Google Scholar, Academia, Sci-Hub and Wiley Online Library, using search keywords related to the topic of the review. This review focuses on the ethnomedicinal uses and chemical constituents of this plant as well as the experimental evidence of its pharmacological activities, such as antimicrobial, antiulcer, antioxidant, hepatoprotective and antiprotozoan activities. There is a need to explore the potential of this plant by evaluating its ethnomedicinal uses using various pharmacological models, isolating and characterising the bioactive compounds for further development into novel therapeutic compounds.