Journal of Medicinal Plants Research Vol. 6(5), pp.

641-644, 9 February, 2012

Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/JMPR
DOI: 10.5897/JMPR11.014
ISSN 1996-0875 ©2012 Academic Journals

Review

Monograph of Tribulus terrestris

Ghazala Shaheen1*, Irshad Ahmad2, Khan Usmanghani 3 Naveed Akhter1, Mukhtiar Ahmad1,
Sabira Sultana1 and M. Akram3
University College of Conventional Medicine, Faculty of Pharmacy and Alternative Medicine, The Islamia University
Bahawalpur, Pakistan.
Accepted 19 December, 2011

Tribulus terrestris has long been used as a tonic and aphrodisiac, and a diuretic in Unani system of
medicine. The diuretic effect was attributed to the presence of potassium salts in high concentration.
So many studies have been done on pharmacological activities of T. terrestris. The major constituents
of these plants are steroidal saponins namely: terrestrosins A, B, C, D and E, desgalactotigonis, F-
gitonis, desglucolanatigoneis, gitnin etc. The biological activity exhibited by saponins include:
pisicidal, antimicrobial, molluscicidal, haemolytic, antiviral, cytotoxic, antihepatotoxic, spermicidal,
insecticidal, antioedematous, antiulcer analgesic, immunomodulatory, and sedative effects.

Key words: Tribulus terrestris, steroidal saponins, aphrodisiac, diuretic.

INTRODUCTION

Tribulus terrestris is a flowering plant of the spines towards the distal half and two shorter ones
family Zygophyllaceae. It is native to warm temperate and nearer the base, seeds one or more in each coccus
tropical regions of the Old World in Southern Europe, (Matthew et al., 1983).
Southern Asia, throughout Africa, and Australia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribulus_terrestris).
Geographical distribution
Family: Zygophyllaceae
Genus: Tribulus The plant grows wild throughout India, the shrub thrives
Species: Terrestris Linn. in well irrigated black soil upto attitudes of 3000 m.
Botanical synonym: Tribulus languinosus Linn. (Matthew et al., 1983) (Figure 1).
English: Land-caltrops, Puncture-vine
Part used: Dried spiny fruit
Traditional uses

Botanical description
T. terrestris is an annual or perennial, prostrate herb with
many slender, spreading branches and silky-villous
young parts (Matthew et al., 1983). Leaves are abruptly
simple, pinnate and opposite. Leaflets almost sessile,
rounded or oblique at the base, mucronate at the apex,
flowers bright yellow, solitary, pseudo axillary or leaf
opposed. Fruits are 5 angled or winged spinous
tuberculate woody schizocarp, separating into five cocci,
each coccus having two long, stiff, sharp divaricate
*Corresponding author. E-mail: ghazala.shaheen@iub.edu.pk.
The roots and fruits are sweet, cooling, diuretic,
aphrodisiac, emollient, appetiser, digestive, anthelmintic,
expectorant, anodyne, anti-inflammatory, alterant,
laxative, cardiotonic, styptic, lithotriptic and tonic. They
are useful in strangury, dysuria, vitiated conditions of vata
and pitta, renal and vesical calculi, anorexia, dyspepsia,
helminthiasis, spermatorrhoea, anaemina, scabies,
ophthalmia, ulocace and general weakness. The leaves
are astringent, diuretic, aphrodisiac, depurative,
anthelmenthic and tonic. They are useful in gonorrhoea,
inflammation, menorrhagia, strangury, leprosy, skin
diseases, verminosis and general weakness. The seeds
are astringent, strengthening and are useful in epistaxis,
haemorrhages and ulcerative stomatitis. The ash of the
whole plant is good for external application in rheumatic-
642 J. Med. Plants Res.

Figure 1. Tribulus terrestris.

essential oil which occurs in the seeds (Nadkarni et al.,

1993).

Phytochemistry

The major constituents of this plants are steroidal

saponins 1 namely terrestrosins A, B, C, D and E,
desgalactotigonis, F-gitonis, desglucolanatigoneis, gitnin
etc., which on hydrolysis yield jdiosgenis, hecogenis and
neotigogenin etc. (Zafar et al., 1989). There are other
minor constituents like alkaloids (uncharacterised) (Yan
Figure 2. Diosgenin. et al., 1996) common phyto sterols namely, -sitosterol,
stigmasterol, a cinnamic amide derivative - terrestiamide
and 7-methylhydroisdamone (Mahato et al., 1978).

Active constituents

The fruit of T. terrestris contain of glycosides, especially

saponin glycosides. The saponins on hydrolysis yields
diosgenin, ruscogenin, gitogenin, three flavone
glycosides etc. (Figures 2, 3 and 4).

PHARMACOLOGY

Antiurolithiatic activity

Figure 3. Ruscogenin. In a preliminary study the diuretic effect of T. terrestris

arthritis. The diuretic properties of the plant are due to the
large quantities of the nitrates present as well as the
and Hygrophila spinosa water extracts in albino rats was
evaluated. The diuretic effect was attributed to the
presence of potassium salts in high concentration
(Kumari and Iyer, 1967). The diuretic action with minimal
side effect of T. terrestris in albino rats was confirmed

Figure 4. Gitogenin.
(Singh et al., 1991). Further studies were conducted to
evaluate the therapeutic use of T. terrestris in various
urinary disorders including urolithiasis. The ethanol
extract was tested for activity against artificially induced
urolithiasis in albino rats. The extract was administered
orally at 25, 50 and 100 mg/kg daily for 4 months. It
exhibited dose dependent antiurolithiatic activity and
almost completely inhibited stone formation. Other
biochemical parameters in urine and serum which were
altered during the process of stone formation were
normalized by the plant extract in a dose dependent
manner (Anand et al., 1994). The effect of an aqueous
extract of T. terrestris administered orally at a dose of 5
g/kg body weight was studied in rats with induced
hyperoxaluria (Intraperitoneal injection of 4 –OH proline
at a dose of 2.5 g/kg body weight for three successive
days) and maintained by sodium glycolate, twenty four
hour urine was collected and analyzed for creatinine and
oxalate. The oxalate excretion reversed to normal from
1.97 + 0.314 to 0.144 + 0.004 mg/mg creatinine (P<0.01)
within 21 days of administration of T. terrestris extract
and remained so until 15 days after withdrawal of extract
and sodium glycolate (Sangeeta et al., 1993). To confirm
the earlier studies, the effect of feeding aqueous extract
of T. terrestris on the metabolism of oxalate in rats fed
with sodium glycolate was evaluated. Glycolate feeding
resulted in hyperoxaluria as well as increased activities of
oxalate synthesizing enzymes of the liver namely
glycolate oxidase (GAO), glycolate dehydrogenase
(GAD) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and decreased
kidney LDH activity. T. terrestris fed rats produced a
significant decrease in urinary oxalate exertion and a
significant increase in urinary glycoxylate excretion, as
compared to sodium glycolate fed animals. The
supplementation of T. terrestris extract also caused a
reduction in liver GAO and GAD activities, where as liver
LDH activity remained unaltered. The isoenzyme pattern
of kidney LDH revealed that normalization of kidney LDH
by T. terrestris was mainly due to an increase in the
Shaheen et al. 643
LDH5 fraction (Sangeeta et al., 1994). Activity guided
fractionation was conducted on fruits of T. terrestris. The
ethanolic extract showed significant dose dependent
protection against uroliths induced by glass bead
implantation in albino rats. On subsequent fractionation of
the ethanolic extract, maximum activity was localized in
the 10% aqueous methanol fraction which provided
significant protection against deposition of calculogenic
material around the glass bead and it also protected
leucocytosis and elevation in serum urea levels. Further
fractionation bead to decreased activity which was
attributed to the loss of active compounds during
fractionation or due to combined effect of several
constituents in the methanolic fraction (Anand et al.,
1994).
Aphrodisiac activity
A study was conducted to investigate the effect of oral
treatment of T. terrestris extract on the isolated corpus
carvenosal tissue of rabbits to determine the mechanism
by which protodioscin (PTN) a constituent of T. terrestris
exerted its pharmacological activity. The animals were
treated with extracts at different dose levels that is, 2.5, 5,
10 mg/kg body weight which was administered orally,
once daily for a period of 8 weeks. The penile tissue from
the sacrificed animals were subjected for responses to
both contractions and relaxing pharmacological agents
and electrical field stimulation (EFS). The results
indicating the relaxant responses to acetyl chloline,
nitroglycerin and EFS by more than 10, 24 and 10%
respectively compared to their control values and the lack
of such effect on the contractile response to
noradrenaline and histamine indicated that PTN had a
proerectile activity. The enhanced relaxant effect was
attributed to the increase of nitric oxide from the
endothelium and nitrergic nerve endings, which may
account for its claims as an aphrodisiac (Adaikan et al.,
2000).
CNS activity
The pharmacological screening of the T. terrestris extract
showed marked CNS stimulant activity at a dosage of 20
mg/kg in albino rats (Prakash et al., 1985).
Cardiotonic activity
In a clinical trial 406 patients with coronary heart disease
were treated with saponins of T. terrestris. The results
showed that the total efficacious rate of remission angina
pectoris was 82.3%. The total efficacious rate of ECG
improvement (52.7%) was even higher than that of
control group (35.8%). It is shown that saponin of
644 J. Med. Plants Res.
T. terrestris has the action of dilating coronary artery and
improving coronary circulation and thus has better effects
on improving ECG of mycocardial ischemia. No adverse
reaction on blood system, hepatic and renal functions
were noticed (Bowen et al., 1990).
Safety profile
The ethanolic (95%) extract was tested in rats
intraperitoneally and the LD50 was found to be 56.4
mg/kg (Dhar et al., 1968). The maximum tolerated dose
in mouse was 100 g/kg, the extract used ethanol and
water (1:1) intraperitoneally (Chakraborty and Neogi,
1978).
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribulus_terrestris