Title:Beneficial Effects and Therapeutic Promises of Diterpenes on Respiratory System
VOLUME: 13 ISSUE: 2
Author(s):Muhammad Torequl Islam*
Affiliation:Department of Pharmacy, Southern University Bangladesh, Mehedibag (Chittagong)-4000
Keywords:Alternative medicine, andrographolide, aphidicolin, diterpenes, forskolin, ponicidin, respiratory system, ryanodine, taxol.
Abstract:Background: The use of natural products, especially from plant origin is antique.
Undoubtedly, a type of plant-derived product, essential oils have gained much attention, due to their
promising biological activities and diverse applicability. Diterpenes, the family members of essential
oils are reported for various important biological activities. This revision aimed to sketch a current
scenario on diterpenes acting on the respiratory system.
Methods: A search was made in the electronic databases (PubMed, Science Direct, Medline, Scopus,
Medline, Atlantics, Web of Science, Springer, American Chemical Society, SciFinder, and Google
scholar) as published articles. To date (December 2016), a total 2583 articles were found on the
search topics, among them only 49 were included in this study.
Results: Findings suggest that diterpenes may act through various pathways in the respiratory system,
such as airway constriction/relaxation, anti-inflammatory and cytogenotoxic/cytoprotective
mechanisms, molecular signals and so on.
Conclusion: Diterpenes may be one of the most promising sources of respiratory medicine. More
researches are highly appreciated on diterpenic lung protective traits.
