4.

Use of tannins in plants:

Tannins are found commonly in the bark of trees, wood, leaves, buds, stems, fruits, seeds, roots, and plant
galls. In all these plant structures, tannins help to protect the individual plant species. Tannins that
become stored in the bark of trees protect the tree from being infected by bacteria or fungi. In this case,
the tannins precipitate out the enzymes and other protein exudates from bacteria and fungi thus not
allowing these organisms to infect the tree. Many bud scales on woody plants contain tannins to protect
the inner leaf tissue from being consumed and in many seed plants the initial set of leaves from a
germinating seed are also high in tannins.

Unripen fruits are high in tannin content. The high tannin content discourages fruit eating animals from
consuming the fruit until the seeds are mature and ready for dispersal. As the fruit ripens the tannin
content lessens.

5. different pharmaceutical use of tannins

 Anti-oxidizing agent – because of accumulation of OH group on small size nucleus, these agents
have antioxidant nature
 Astringent- tannins have property to react with protein of mucous membrane and cause
precipitation
 Antidote for metallic, alkaloidal and glycolic poisoning
 When incubated with red grape juice and red wines with a high quantity of condensed tannins
the polio virus, Herpes simplex virus and various enteric viruses are inactivated
 In tissue cultured cell assays tannins have shown antiviral anti-bacterial and antiparasitic effects
 Tannin rich food can be used to treat HFE hereditary, hemochromatosis, a hereditary disease that
causes excessive absorption of dietary iron resulting in pathological increase in total body iron
stores

U.S. Forest Service. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/ethnobotany/tannins.shtml.

Slideshare.net. (2014). Tannins. [online] Available at: https://www.slideshare.net/safdar850/tannins-

42423856.