The genus Avicennia, a pioneer group of dominant mangrove plant species with potential medicinal values: a review

ABSTRACT The genus Avicennia comprises eight species of mangrove trees that occur in intertidal zones of estuaries and seabeds found in tropical and temperate regions spanning throughout the world. The plants belonging to the genus have both ecological and economic benefits. Different parts of the plants have ethnomedicinal applications for treatment of various diseases such as cancer, diabetes, malaria, rheumatism, asthma, small pox and ulcer. Pharmacological investigations have revealed antimicrobial, antioxidant, anticancer, antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory activities and so on in these plants. The genus possesses some unique metabolites of varied chemicals classes, which are responsible for their wide range of pharmacological activities. The presence of different bioactive compounds such as alkaloids, flavonoids, phenols, saponins, tannins, glycosides and terpenoids has been detected. Hence, there is a great scope to discover new biological active phytochemicals from different mangrove species of genus Avicennia. Although many research articles have been published on various pharmacological aspects of different plants of the genus, no comprehensive review is yet available pertaining to their ethnomedicinal uses, chemical constituents and pharmacological activities. The present article discusses the diversity as well as distribution of different species of genus Avicennia along with an in-depth coverage of their ethnomedicinal uses, phytochemical and pharmacological profiles.