Rauwolfia serpentina root

Rauwolfia (Rauwolfia serpentina), also spelled ravolphia, is a medicinal plant in the milkweed family. The root of the plant is ground into a powder or sold in tablets or capsules. It is a compound commonly used in Asian medicine, which includes traditional Ayurvedic medicine native to India. The active ingredients in this drug are alkaloids and about 50 have been identified through various studies, although the primary psychoactive components appear to be reserpine, rescinnamine, and deserpidine . This product was approved prior to Jan 1, 1982, but since, has been discontinued due to its propensity for leading to depression . Reserpine is derived from Rauwolfia serpentina, and was commonly used as an antihypertensive agent in the 1950s . Rauwolfia serpentina is also commonly referred to as Sarpaghanda . Interestingly, the hairy root component of this plant has shown a remarkable capacity to regenerate into complete Rauwolfia plants and shows survival and unaltered biosynthetic potential during storage at decreased temperatures. For this reason, various studies into biotechnological applications of this plant have been performed. Multiple studies have been done on their biosynthetic potential and numerous biotechnological methods used to study the production of pharmaceutically important alkaloids .