Emerging Phytochemicals and Bioactive Compounds from a Desert Plant Prosopis cineraria (L.) Druce and Future Prospects

Prosopis cineraria (L.) Druce (Family Leguminosae, subfamily Mimosoideae) has a number of uses in ethnomedicine. P. cineraria has social, ethnological, traditional and remedial effects on the lives of people. P. cineraria is an important herbal plant as mentioned in the ancient literature. It is used traditionally for treatment of various ailments like leprosy, dysentery, asthma, leukoderma, dyspepsia and earache. The objective is to review the phytochemicals and the bio potential of the plant. This paper includes an overview on the studies of different herbal extracts, metabolites and major classes of metabolites which are pharmacologically active, like alkaloids and flavonoids, which have anti-tumor, antioxidant, anti-diabetic, anti-nociceptive, estrogenic and antimicrobial activity. A comprehensive literature survey was performed on the phytochemicals present in the different parts of the plant P. cineraria and their pharmacological properties with chemical structures. This review was prepared with thorough advanced search by using key words P. cineraria (L.) Druce in Google, Google Scholar, PubMed, SciFinder, Scopus and ProQuest as well as from English language scientific journals, magazines and books. The phytochemicals discussed in the present review could be promising candidates to be utilized as bioactive compounds for direct use as drug or herbal extracts as botanical drugs.