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Abstract
Alkaloids are sole or key components for many natural herbs based drugs. Alkaloids play important role in alleviating ill effect of many human disease. Catharanthus roseus is an herbaceous plant having ornamental and medicinal value. It has been part of traditional herbal medicine. Crude extract obtained from different plant parts containing alkaloids as well as other phytochemicals has been documented for various therapeutic purposes. Purified alkaloids and their derivatives have now being well characterized as anticancer, anti-diabetic and antioxidant. Under natural conditions the production of alkaloids in wild species is low. This is responsible for low availability and high price of resulting drugs. Routine breeding, tissue culture, metabolic engineering and mutagenesis approaches can be employed to improve yield of alkaloids.