Andrographiside

Andrographiside at a Glance

Andrographiside is a minor diterpenoid glucoside from andrographis (Andrographis paniculata), the intensely bitter “king of bitters” of Ayurvedic and Chinese herbal medicine. Structurally it is the 19-O-glucoside of andrographolide — the plant’s dominant labdane diterpene lactone — with a single glucose sugar attached at the C-19 position (molecular formula C₂₆H₄₀O₁₀).

It is one of several related diterpenoids that accompany andrographolide in the aerial parts, and it is not a compound the plant is standardized to. Its small claim to attention is a single line of isolated-compound research: in an animal model, purified andrographiside protected the liver against chemical injury about as effectively as the reference hepatoprotectant silymarin ^{1Reference 1Kapil A et al. · 1993Antihepatotoxic effects of major diterpenoid constituents of Andrographis paniculataView study →}.

That signal is real but thin. There are no human studies of andrographiside, and nearly all of andrographis’s clinical evidence belongs to standardized extracts dominated by andrographolide, not to this minor glucoside. This page reports what the isolate work shows and is candid about where it stops.

Andrographiside, Andrographolide’s Glucoside

Andrographis owes its reputation to one molecule: andrographolide, a labdane diterpene lactone that is the bitter principle and the marker to which commercial extracts are titrated. Andrographiside is that same molecule carrying an extra sugar — a glucose unit joined at C-19, making it andrographolide 19-O-β-D-glucoside ^{1,2Reference 1Kapil A et al. · 1993Antihepatotoxic effects of major diterpenoid constituents of Andrographis paniculataView study →Reference 2Chao WW · 2010Isolation and identification of bioactive compounds in Andrographis paniculata (Chuanxinlian)View study →}.

Chemically, that one change matters. Attaching a sugar (glycosylation) makes a molecule larger and more water-soluble, generally lowering its passive absorption across the gut wall while making the sugar itself a target for hydrolysis by gut enzymes and microbiota. Functionally, andrographiside sits among a small family of andrographis diterpenoids — alongside neoandrographolide, 14-deoxyandrographolide and 14-deoxy-11,12-didehydroandrographolide — that are present in the aerial parts at much lower levels than andrographolide and are not, individually, what the herb is dosed on ^{2,3Reference 2Chao WW · 2010Isolation and identification of bioactive compounds in Andrographis paniculata (Chuanxinlian)View study →Reference 3Hossain MS et al. · 2014ReviewAndrographis paniculata (Burm. f.) Wall. ex Nees: a review of ethnobotany, phytochemistry, and pharmacologyView study →}.

Its one distinguishing research signal is hepatoprotection with an antioxidant flavour, and the sugar is thought to be part of the story: the investigators who tested it proposed that the glucoside group may itself act as a strong antioxidant, which would help explain why the glucosides performed comparably to silymarin in their model ^{1,2Reference 1Kapil A et al. · 1993Antihepatotoxic effects of major diterpenoid constituents of Andrographis paniculataView study →Reference 2Chao WW · 2010Isolation and identification of bioactive compounds in Andrographis paniculata (Chuanxinlian)View study →}. That is a plausible structure–activity idea, not a settled mechanism — and it rests on a single isolated-compound study with no human follow-up.

Major Natural Sources

Source	Part	Notes
Andrographis (Andrographis paniculata)	Aerial parts (leaf/stem)	The documented source; a minor diterpenoid glucoside accompanying andrographolide, not separately quantified in most surveys ^{2,3Reference 2Chao WW · 2010Isolation and identification of bioactive compounds in Andrographis paniculata (Chuanxinlian)View study →Reference 3Hossain MS et al. · 2014ReviewAndrographis paniculata (Burm. f.) Wall. ex Nees: a review of ethnobotany, phytochemistry, and pharmacologyView study →}

Andrographiside has not been reported as a meaningful constituent of any plant outside the Andrographis genus, and no reliable percent-dry-weight figure for it has been published — the gap is tracked in this compound’s notes.

What It's Used For

The entire pharmacology of isolated andrographiside rests on one line of preclinical work: a hepatoprotective/antioxidant signal in a chemically-injured mouse liver ^{1Reference 1Kapil A et al. · 1993Antihepatotoxic effects of major diterpenoid constituents of Andrographis paniculataView study →}. Everything else here is either read-across from the parent aglycone andrographolide or an honest statement of absence.

A hepatoprotective/antioxidant signal — as the isolate, in one animal study.Purified andrographiside reduced lipid-peroxidation products (malondialdehyde) and liver-enzyme leakage in mice given carbon tetrachloride or tert-butylhydroperoxide, performing comparably to silymarin on those markers ^{1Reference 1Kapil A et al. · 1993Antihepatotoxic effects of major diterpenoid constituents of Andrographis paniculataView study →}.

The glucoside may carry antioxidant character.The investigators attributed the diterpenoid glucosides’ activity partly to the sugar group acting as an antioxidant — a structure–activity hypothesis, not a demonstrated mechanism ^{1,2Reference 1Kapil A et al. · 1993Antihepatotoxic effects of major diterpenoid constituents of Andrographis paniculataView study →Reference 2Chao WW · 2010Isolation and identification of bioactive compounds in Andrographis paniculata (Chuanxinlian)View study →}.

The honest headline: no human data, thin isolate data, poor expected bioavailability.Andrographiside has never been dosed in people; andrographis’s human evidence is for standardized extracts dominated by andrographolide, whose own oral bioavailability is poor ^{4Reference 4Zeng B et al. · 2022Clinical trialAndrographolide: a review of its pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, toxicity and clinical trials and pharmaceutical researchesView study →} — and glycosylation is unlikely to improve on that.

Evidence by IndicationStrength of support · Beta

Support is an experimental score — weighted by study type (human > animal > in vitro) and volume. A beta, not a validated metric. Here it reflects a single animal isolate study with no human data, so read it as “promising but preliminary,” not “established.”

Mechanisms

Target / pathway	Effect	Relevant to
Lipid peroxidation (malondialdehyde)	reduces MDA formation after CCl₄ / tBHP challenge	hepatoprotective / antioxidant
Reduced glutathione (GSH)	limits GSH depletion (partial — full restoration was neoandrographolide’s, not andrographiside’s)	antioxidant
Serum transaminase / alkaline phosphatase (GPT, AP)	reduces enzyme leakage from injured hepatocytes	hepatoprotective
C-19 glucoside moiety	the sugar group proposed to contribute radical-scavenging / antioxidant capacity	structure–activity hypothesis
Nrf2 / NF-κB antioxidant–inflammatory axis	documented for the aglycone andrographolide, not demonstrated for the glucoside — read-across only	mechanistic context

The load-bearing claim is narrow: reduced lipid peroxidation and enzyme leakage in one animal model ^{1Reference 1Kapil A et al. · 1993Antihepatotoxic effects of major diterpenoid constituents of Andrographis paniculataView study →}. The Nrf2/NF-κB machinery belongs to andrographolide’s much larger literature ^{4,5Reference 4Zeng B et al. · 2022Clinical trialAndrographolide: a review of its pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, toxicity and clinical trials and pharmaceutical researchesView study →Reference 5Mussard E et al. · 2019Andrographolide, a natural antioxidant: an updateView study →} and is offered here only as context, not as a shown property of andrographiside.

Pharmacokinetics

There is essentially no pharmacokinetic data for andrographiside. What can be said is inferential. Its parent aglycone, andrographolide, is repeatedly flagged for poor oral bioavailability, which is the central limitation on translating its preclinical potency ^{4Reference 4Zeng B et al. · 2022Clinical trialAndrographolide: a review of its pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, toxicity and clinical trials and pharmaceutical researchesView study →}. Andrographiside is a glycoside — larger, more polar, and carrying a sugar that gut enzymes and microbiota can cleave — so intact oral absorption would, if anything, be expected to be lower than the aglycone’s, with any systemic activity plausibly running through andrographolide liberated by hydrolysis. None of this has been measured for andrographiside specifically: absorption, oral bioavailability, metabolism, active metabolites and half-life are all undocumented for this compound. This unknown PK is the strongest caveat on the animal hepatoprotection signal.

Clinical Trials

There are no clinical trials of isolated andrographiside — the compound has never been administered to humans as an isolate. Human andrographis trials test standardized whole-plant extracts titrated to andrographolide, within which andrographiside is only a minor accompanying constituent.

Completed	Planned	Terminated	Preclinical
—	—	—	Hepatoprotective / antioxidant (one mouse isolate study) ^{1Reference 1Kapil A et al. · 1993Antihepatotoxic effects of major diterpenoid constituents of Andrographis paniculataView study →}

Last checked: July 2026.

Isolate vs. Plant Studies

Andrographiside sits at the thin end of the isolate-vs-plant spectrum. Its one supporting study used the purified isolate ^{1Reference 1Kapil A et al. · 1993Antihepatotoxic effects of major diterpenoid constituents of Andrographis paniculataView study →} — which, in principle, is the cleaner kind of evidence — but there is only the one, in animals, and it has never been carried into humans. On the other side, andrographis’s substantial human evidence base is for standardized extracts (often combination products) titrated to andrographolide, the dominant diterpene lactone, not to andrographiside ^{2,3Reference 2Chao WW · 2010Isolation and identification of bioactive compounds in Andrographis paniculata (Chuanxinlian)View study →Reference 3Hossain MS et al. · 2014ReviewAndrographis paniculata (Burm. f.) Wall. ex Nees: a review of ethnobotany, phytochemistry, and pharmacologyView study →}. In whole-herb hepatoprotection studies, the protective effect is attributed to the extract and to andrographolide, with andrographiside merely present alongside — for example, an Andrographis paniculata extract protected mouse liver against paracetamol toxicity, but the design cannot apportion any of that effect to the glucoside ^{6Reference 6Nagalekshmi R et al. · 2011Hepatoprotective activity of Andrographis paniculata and Swertia chirayitaView study →}. In short: the isolate signal is genuine but singular, and the plant-level evidence cannot be read as evidence for this molecule.

Discovery & Synthesis

Andrographiside entered the literature as one of the minor ent-labdane diterpenoids characterized during the twentieth-century work on the chemistry of Andrographis paniculata, the same body of research that mapped andrographolide and its relatives; a clean first-isolation record for the compound is not well documented, and it is best understood as one of the many diterpenoid glycosides catalogued as the plant’s phytochemistry was worked out ^{2,3Reference 2Chao WW · 2010Isolation and identification of bioactive compounds in Andrographis paniculata (Chuanxinlian)View study →Reference 3Hossain MS et al. · 2014ReviewAndrographis paniculata (Burm. f.) Wall. ex Nees: a review of ethnobotany, phytochemistry, and pharmacologyView study →}. Its name marks its parentage — andrographolide plus the glycoside suffix — reflecting its identity as andrographolide 19-O-β-D-glucoside ^{1,2Reference 1Kapil A et al. · 1993Antihepatotoxic effects of major diterpenoid constituents of Andrographis paniculataView study →Reference 2Chao WW · 2010Isolation and identification of bioactive compounds in Andrographis paniculata (Chuanxinlian)View study →}. No total synthesis of andrographiside is on record; as with most such minor plant glycosides, it is obtained by isolation from the aerial parts rather than by manufacture, and it has no commercial production of its own — the herb is grown and extracted for andrographolide, and andrographiside is only ever a co-isolated minor component.

Patents: not yet researched.

Toxicity & Safety

Andrographiside carries a low flag, but this reflects the absence of any dedicated toxicology as much as any positive safety finding — no isolate toxicity, genotoxicity or repeat-dose dataset has been characterized for the pure compound. What reassurance exists is indirect: it is a minor constituent of a widely-consumed medicinal herb, and in the one animal study it was hepatoprotective rather than hepatotoxic at 100 mg/kg ^{1Reference 1Kapil A et al. · 1993Antihepatotoxic effects of major diterpenoid constituents of Andrographis paniculataView study →}.

The relevant cautions belong to the whole herb and its aglycone, and are noted here in prose only. Andrographis and andrographolide carry a traditional and animal-model reputation for reproductive/anti-fertility effects, which is why andrographis products are generally cautioned against in pregnancy and when trying to conceive; this is a herb- and product-level decision made where intake is decided, not a property established for isolated andrographiside. No isolate reproductive-, developmental- or drug-interaction data exist for this molecule specifically.

Safety at a Glance

Low / no toxicity

Minor constituent of a widely-used herb. Present in the aerial parts of andrographis, and hepatoprotective (not hepatotoxic) in the one animal study, at 100 mg/kg ^{1Reference 1Kapil A et al. · 1993Antihepatotoxic effects of major diterpenoid constituents of Andrographis paniculataView study →}.
No isolate safety data. No genotoxicity, repeat-dose, reproductive or interaction dataset exists for pure andrographiside — a low flag reflects absence of findings, not a clean bill of health.
Pregnancy / fertility caution carries at the herb level. Andrographis and andrographolide have a reproductive/anti-fertility signal; pregnancy and preconception caution is decided on the herb/product, not this molecule.
Do not read whole-extract results onto this molecule. Andrographis’s human evidence is for standardized andrographolide extracts; it does not transfer to the isolated glucoside.

Dosage

There is no established dose for isolated andrographiside, and no basis for one — it has never been administered to humans. The only figure in the literature is experimental: 100 mg/kg in mice for three consecutive days as hepatoprotective pre-treatment ^{1Reference 1Kapil A et al. · 1993Antihepatotoxic effects of major diterpenoid constituents of Andrographis paniculataView study →}, an animal research dose that does not translate to a human amount.

In practice, exposure to andrographiside comes only from consuming andrographis itself, where it is a minor component of the diterpenoid fraction. Andrographis products are standardized to andrographolide (research doses of the herb commonly deliver defined andrographolide amounts), not to andrographiside, so the glucoside is never dosed on its own. This is a research figure, not a personal recommendation.

References

Kapil A, Koul IB, Banerjee SK, Gupta BD (1993). Antihepatotoxic effects of major diterpenoid constituents of Andrographis paniculata. Biochemical Pharmacology. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8347130/
Chao WW, Lin BF (2010). Isolation and identification of bioactive compounds in Andrographis paniculata (Chuanxinlian). Chinese Medicine. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20465823/
Hossain MS, Urbi Z, Sule A, Rahman KMH (2014). Andrographis paniculata (Burm. f.) Wall. ex Nees: a review of ethnobotany, phytochemistry, and pharmacology. The Scientific World Journal. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25950015/
Zeng B, et al. (2022). Andrographolide: a review of its pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, toxicity and clinical trials and pharmaceutical researches. Phytotherapy Research. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34818697/
Mussard E, et al. (2019). Andrographolide, a natural antioxidant: an update. Antioxidants. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31756965/
Nagalekshmi R, Menon A, Chandrasekharan DK, Nair CKK (2011). Hepatoprotective activity of Andrographis paniculata and Swertia chirayita. Food and Chemical Toxicology. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21983487/