Deep within the forests of the Western Ghats, a team of city-based researchers have stumbled on a rare medicinal plant which is believed to have anti-cancer properties. However, it isn’t the discovery of the creeper that holds potential. The researchers have developed a cultivation technique that enables large-scale use in the pharmaceutical sector.
The Miquelia Dentata Bedd. is a small creeper found sparsely in the mountainous regions around Kodagu. It is of special interest due to its production of anti-cancer alkaloid camptothecine (CPT). Its fruits produce the highest reported content of CPT, ranging from 0.8 to 1.2 per cent by dry weight, says a research paper published recently in the quarterly Indian Journal of Biotechnology .
“We came across this plant while exploring alternate sources of CPT, which is the third largest selling compound for the treatment of various cancers,” says G. Ravikanth, Fellow, Conservation Genetics Lab, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), who is the lead author of the paper.
Currently, CPT is destructively harvested from other tree species, including the Nothapodytes nimmoniana (small trees found in the Western Ghats), in India which has pushed them towards extinction. In other words, harvesting the compound involves logging and destroying the tree itself.
Cultivating the plant
The team, which apart from Mr. Ravikanth, comprised H N Thriveni and R Vasudeva from the College of Forestry, University of Agricultural Sciences, Sirsi; K.N. Ganeshaiah and R. Uma Shaanker from University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, set about developing a procedure to cultivate the wild creeper in a nursery in Sirsi.
The results were encouraging: CPT production was recorded at 5.4 micro-gram per milligram of the sample. Researchers hope to increase extraction in the coming years.
“We plan to introduce this plant in coffee plantations and arecanut gardens. (With funding from Department of Biotechnology) we hope to have standardised techniques for cultivation of this species within three years,” said Mr. Ravikanth.
He hoped that once the challenge of mass cultivation of the plant is overcome, India’s production of the key anti-cancer compound will match that of China.
