Phytochemical and Pharmacological Properties of <i>Calpurnia Aurea</i>, Review

Calpurnia aurea plant belongs to in the fabaceae family and in the general of Calpurnia is a widely consumed medicinal plant in east Africa such as Ethiopia and Eritrea. It used to treat diseases like amoebiasis, giardiasis, dysentery, syphilis, malaria, exoparasite, diarrhea and snake bite. Many scientific papers available about it’s phytochemical and pharmacological activities. This review was focused on the Ethnobotay, phytochemistry and the biological activities of Calpurnia aurea plant using different scientific articles, books and reports available online in academic searching sites such as Google scholar, PubMed, Scoups, ProQuest and Web of science. Based on the review all parts of the plant reported to have secondary metabolites such as flavonoids, terpenoids , alkaloids, glycosides, tannins and steroids and, biological activities such as antioxidant, antibacterial, anticancer, antimalarial, anti-diarrheal, antiextoparasite and insecticidal activities. Bioactive chemical compounds also reported from stem, leaves, bark and seeds of Calpurnia aurea plant in different classes such as alkaloids, flavonoids, glycosides and terpenoids. Based on the information gathered from the chemical constituent and pharmacological properties of the plant part Calpurnia aurea is confirmed the traditional medicinal use but further work is required related to isolation of more bioactive compounds and to investigate biological activities in advanced techniques including Insilco methods to contribute for modern drug discovery.