Vietnam has a long tradition of traditional medicine using a variety of herbs
for treating diseases and enhancing health. Vietnam has about 12,000 species of
higher plants. Of these, nearly 5,000 species are used as medicinal plants [1, 2].
The medicinal plant resources have played important role due to the great
potential in research and development of drugs in the treatment of diseases.
Many compounds from medicinal plants and animal were discovered
and used as drugs for treating diseases and enhancing health. However,
many of medicinal plants still need to be studied chemical constituents as
well as biological activities to find out bioactive compounds. The Tacca
species, the well-known medicinal plants were used for the treatment of
diseases such as gastric ulcer, enteritis, hepatitis, etc., get the attention of
scientists around the world. The studies have showed that the extract and
compounds from Tacca species exhibited various biological activities such
as cytotoxic, microtubules, anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, antimicrobial,
and anti-bacterial activities, etc. In Vietnam, there are some species of
Tacca such as Tacca chantrieri, a traditional medicine was used for the
treatment of rheumatism. Tacca vietnamensis roots and tubers are used as
medicines such as Tacca chantrieri. Their leaves were used as vegetable.
There are few researches on the chemical components and biological
activities of Tacca species grown in Vietnam. Until so far, there are only 3
publications on Tacca plantaginea and Tacca chantrieri [1, 4-6].
Therefore, to identify bioactive compounds from Tacca species, I chosen
thesis topic “Study on chemical constituents and biological activities of Tacca
vietnmensis and Tacca chantrieri species growing in Vietnam”