Mango ginger (Curcuma amada Roxb.) - A promising spice for phytochemicals and biological activities

Review

Mango ginger (Curcuma amada Roxb.) A promising spice for phytochemicals and biological activities

RS POLICEGOUDRA1,*, SM ARADHYA2 and L SINGH1 1Department of Biotechnology, Defence Research Laboratory, Tezpur 784 001, India

2Fruit and Vegetable technology Department, Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore 570 020, India

*Corresponding author (Fax, [phone]; Email, [email protected])

Mango ginger (Curcuma amada Roxb.) is a unique spice having morphological resemblance with ginger but imparts a raw mango flavour. The main use of mango ginger rhizome is in the manufacture of pickles and culinary preparations. Ayurveda and Unani medicinal systems have given much importance to mango ginger as an appetizer, alexteric, antipyretic, aphrodisiac, diuretic, emollient, expectorant and laxative and to cure biliousness, itching, skin diseases, bronchitis, asthma, hiccough and inflammation due to injuries. The biological activities of mango ginger include antioxidant activity, antibacterial activity, antifungal activity, anti-inflammatory activity, platelet aggregation inhibitory activity, cytotoxicity, antiallergic activity, hypotriglyceridemic activity, brine-shrimp lethal activity, enterokinase inhibitory activity, CNS depressant and analgesic activity. The major chemical components include starch, phenolic acids, volatile oils, curcuminoids and terpenoids like difurocumenonol, amadannulen and amadaldehyde. This article brings to light the major active components present in C. amada along with their biological activities that may be important from the pharmacological point of view.

[Policegoudra RS, Aradhya SM and Singh L 2011 Mango ginger (Curcuma amada Roxb.) A promising spice for phytochemicals and biological activities. J. Biosci. 36 739748] DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12038-011-9106-1

Web End =10.1007/s12038-011-9106-1

carried out on Curcuma longa (turmeric) and Zingber offcinale (ginger), but Curcuma amada (mango ginger) is an untapped medicinal plant of the ginger family. This review explores the phytochemicals and their biological activities of C. amada.

2. Botany and taxonomy of Curcuma amada

Curcuma amada is a unique spice having morphological resemblance with ginger (Zingiber officinale) but imparts a raw mango (Mangifera indica) flavour. The genus name Curcuma was coined by Linnaeus in 1753 in his Species Plantarum. The word probably derives from the Arabic word kurkum, which means yellow colour (Salvi et al. 2000;Shirgurkar et al. 2001). Curcuma amada Roxb. is commonly known as mango ginger. It is a perennial, rhizomatous, aromatic herb belonging to the family Zingiberaceae. This family is composed of 7080 species of rhizomatous annual

Keywords. Antimicrobials; antioxidants; biological activities; biochemical constituents; Curcuma amada; Mango...