Coscinium fenestratum (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Coscinium fenestratum (Gaertner) Colebr.

Protologue: Trans. Linn. Soc. 13: 65 (1821).

Family: Menispermaceae

Chromosome number: 2n= unknown

Coscinium wallichianum Miers (1871), Coscinium usitatum Pierre (1885), Coscinium blumeanum auct. non Miers ex Hook.f. & Thomson.

• Indonesia: akar kuning (Java), akar kunyit (Bangka), upak-upak (East Kalimantan)
• Malaysia: kunyit-kunyit babi (Peninsular), abang asuh (Sabah), perawan (Sarawak)
• Thailand: khruea hen (north-eastern), khamin khruea (south-eastern)
• Vietnam: vàng dắng, hoàng dằng, dằng giang.

C. fenestratum has been found in southern India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand (rare), Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, Bangka, western Java and Borneo.

The roots of C. fenestratum have alleged antiseptic properties and are commonly used to dress wounds, burns and ulcers, e.g. in Peninsular Malaysia. In India and Indo-China, an infusion of the root and wood of the stem is used against fever, as a stomachic, and to treat dysentery, jaundice and eye inflammations. It has also been applied in a complex decoction after childbirth in Peninsular Malaysia. In India, C. fenestratum is traditionally used as a prophylactic against tetanus. The roots have been sold as a substitute for “Radix Calumba”“ (the roots of Jateorhiza palmata (Lamk) Miers, a liana of the same family originating from Africa and containing similar alkaloids). In Vietnam, tablets made from crude alcoholic C. fenestratum extracts are prescribed to cure dysentery.

The roots and bark are also used as piscicide and as an ingredient of dart poison. The tubers are reputedly eaten. The wood produces a yellow dye, which has been much used in Cambodia and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere.

Pharmacological screening of an aqueous methanol (1:1) extract showed convulsant activity, but no antitumour activity. An aqueous extract of C. fenestratum revealed selective inhibitory action on Clostridium tetani , with the alkaloid berberine as the active constituent. In clinical tests in Vietnam, the extract also showed distinct activity on Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus hemolyticus , which may cause inflammation and infection especially in women after childbirth. A 50% ethanol extract of stem material showed a dose-related hypotensive action in anaesthetized dogs, rats and guinea-pigs.

Many alkaloids, mainly of the protoberberine type, have been isolated from stems and roots of C. fenestratum , e.g. magnoflorine, berberrubine, thalifendine, berberine, palmatine, jatrorrhizine and oxyberberine. The major alkaloids are berberine and jatrorrhizine. The pharmacological effects of berberine have been fairly well investigated. It has been found active against a number of gram-positive as well as gram-negative bacteria, and also against a number of fungi. It was also effective against experimentally induced intestinal amoebiasis in rats, and showed growth inhibition of Ehrlich and lymphoma ascites tumour cells. The antidiarrhoeal properties of berberine may be mediated, at least in part, by its ability to delay small intestinal transit time. Berberine is also present in high concentrations in other Menispermaceae species, e.g. in Arcangelisia flava (L.) Merr., which is used for similar complaints as C. fenestratum .

A dioecious liana up to c. 10 m long, with yellow wood and sap. Leaves arranged spirally, simple, broadly ovate or ovate, rarely subpanduriform, 11-33 cm × 8-23 cm, base rounded, truncate to shallowly cordate, apex acuminate, palmately 5-7-veined; petiole 3-16 cm long, often conspicuously swollen at both ends, geniculate at base, inserted up to 0.8(-2.7) cm from basal margin of leaf blade (and leaf thus often peltate); stipules absent. Inflorescence a globose head 6-7 mm in diameter on a peduncle 10-30 mm long, arranged in a raceme 5-11 cm long, supra-axillary or on older, leafless stems, brown tomentose. Flowers unisexual, small, yellowish or whitish; sepals 9, in 3 whorls, imbricate, densely sericeous-pilose; petals absent; male flowers with 6 stamens, outer 3 free, inner 3 connate; female flowers with 6 staminodes and 3 superior, densely pilose carpels. Fruit consisting of 1-3 subglobose drupes c. 3 cm in diameter, brown to orange or yellowish, drupe 1-seeded. Seed subglobose, whitish, with divaricate, much folded and divided cotyledons; endosperm present.

It has been observed that the fruits are dispersed by orang-utans, gibbons and macaques, which eat the fruits.

Coscinium comprises 2 species: the widely distributed C. fenestratum and C. blumeanum Miers ex Hook.f. & Thomson, which has a very restricted distribution (peninsular Thailand, and Penang and Pangkor Island of Peninsular Malaysia). The name C. blumeanum has often been wrongly applied to C. fenestratum , and the uses reported in the literature for C. blumeanum probably refer to C. fenestratum .

C. fenestratum occurs in primary lowland forest, sometimes also in brushwood, up to 200 m altitude.

Management Callus and cell suspension cultures have been established from sterile petiole segments on Murashige and Skoog medium, supplemented with 2,4-dichlorophenoxy acetic acid and benzyl amino purine. The cultured cells produced berberine as the major compound. The presence of light inhibited the growth and enhanced the berberine synthesis.

C. fenestratum is fairly widely distributed, and is locally common (e.g. in Peninsular Malaysia and southern Vietnam), but elsewhere rare (e.g. in Thailand and Java). Wild populations of C. fenestratum have been important in Vietnam for berberine extraction to produce drugs since the beginning of the 1980s. They have been under heavy pressure since then, and should be protected from excessive exploitation. In India and Sri Lanka, C. fenestratum has already been listed as an endangered species.

Like other Menispermaceae species, C. fenestratum is considered an important medicinal plant. The alkaloids of the berberine class have several pharmacologically interesting activities and are generally considered safe at doses used in clinical situations. Large-scale production of alkaloids from C. fenestratum seems possible through tissue culture, and this might also lower the pressure on wild populations of the species.

247, 660, 862, 871.

62, 121, 249, 334, 592, 671, 717, 731, 906.

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Andria Agusta