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About 10–25% species of total over 400,000 species present on the planet Earth are used for human welfare. Plants and their habitats are destroyed for human benefits, and thus, valuable diversity is lost without understanding the utility. Tropical and subtropical agroclimatic conditions support the rich biodiversity of plants which decline towards...
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... Alternative biotechnologies such as a production system using cell cultures grown in a bioreactor or micropropagation of selected and/or improved germplasm relieve this pressure on plants and help their conservation. Plant cells contain an array of primary and secondary metabolites used for human welfare [1][2][3]. ...
... However, we have some examples of primary products exerting physiological effects on the mammalian system such as some proteins (blood agglutinants) from Fabaceae, ricin from Ricinus communis, insulin, abrine, and precatorine from Abrus precatorius, vaccines, and snake poisons. The other examples of primary metabolites are vitamins like B2 and B12, alcohols, organic acids, and nucleotides [1,2,4]. Due to the presence of these specialized metabolites, medicinal plants are used in traditional as well as modern therapies. ...
... These and several other health issues like obesity, which in itself is a cause of several physiological disorders, are the result of the modern diet with high-caloric processed food. The physiological role of specialized metabolites has been known since antiquity, hence medicinal plants formed the basis of various traditional herbal medicines in old civilizations [1,3,25]. Now we have insight into the specific molecule responsible for the known physiological effect. ...
... Chemotaxonomy and chemophenetics are based on the assumption that most morphologically defined species have a constant core metabolome, irrespective of their geographic origin, or ecology [164,165], and that robust morphological properties correspond to chemical differences as first shown for pigments of the arthropod genus Daphnia [161]. While chemotaxonomy has been applied for a wide range of organisms [162,166], including vascular plants, algae, and other cryptogams such as lichens for nearly 50 years [161,164,[167][168][169], for bryophytes chemotaxonomy has rarely been investigated [127,[170][171][172][173][174]. However, due to the enormous progress in analytical and computational metabolomics (see above), chemotaxonomy can now be considered a viable alternative in bryophytes. ...
... Chemotaxonomy and chemophenetics are based on the assumption that most morphologically defined species have a constant core metabolome, irrespective of their geographic origin, or ecology [164,165], and that robust morphological properties correspond to chemical differences as first shown for pigments of the arthropod genus Daphnia [161]. While chemotaxonomy has been applied for a wide range of organisms [162,166], including vascular plants, algae, and other cryptogams such as lichens for nearly 50 years [161,164,[167][168][169], for bryophytes chemotaxonomy has rarely been investigated [127,[170][171][172][173][174]. However, due to the enormous progress in analytical and computational metabolomics (see above), chemotaxonomy can now be considered a viable alternative in bryophytes. ...
... They are therefore sources of therapeutic agents having commercial value often traded across continents making their proper identification and authentication crucial to avoid adulteration and substitution [6]. One modern approach is the use of chemotaxonomy [7], a term that has received proposal for revision to that of a more relevant, technology-driven 21st century term known as chemophenetics; defined as the study tailored towards the description of a unique group of secondary metabolites bioaccummulated in a particular taxon [8,9]. ...
The proper documentation of ethnopharmacological application of widely used indigenous plants and their phytochemical analysis has positively impacted the drug discovery pipeline. Medicinal plants with potential commercial value and prospects for clinical application need to be properly identified and authenticated to avoid confusion, adulteration and substitution. Oldenlandia affinis (OA) has continued to attract scientific attention following the discovery of extremely stable cyclotides (circular peptides) that are not expressed in many investigated members of the contentious genus, Oldenlandia (synonym – Hedyotis ); yet there is a lack of an elaborate review covering some broader aspects of its traditional uses, ethnopharmacology and phytochemistry of the species. More importantly, the age long but lingering confusion and taxonomic inconsistencies common to the Oldenlandia–Hedyotis debate could foster species mismatching, increase cases of misidentification, promote adulteration of OA and thereby limit its proper clinical application. Here, we aim to reveal the extent of indigenous use of and research on OA from 1960 till date, unveil knowledge gaps, document hitherto unknown traditional applications, ethnopharmacological uses, pharmacological properties, and reported phytochemical profile. In addition, to encourage proper selection and utilization of genuine crude drug, the chemotaxonomically important phytoconstituents of OA have been presented and the modern approach of chemophenetic study of OA proposed to resolve the lack of consensus in the taxonomy of OA as well as the morphologically and anatomically close members of the taxon. The abundant cyclotide expression in OA represents a new chemotaxonomic marker for its unambiguous identification, utilization and reproducibility of research findings on the species.
... The number of plant species that exist on earth is not fully known. Even though there is an estimated number of 400,000 plant species, the world plant list contains over a million names under 642 plant families and many of them are considered synonyms of the same plant ( Ramawat, 2019 ). The World Health Organization (WHO) has listed approximately 21,000 herbs, bushes, and/or trees that are used for medicinal purposes around the world ( Modak et al., 2007 ). ...
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a promising therapeutic approach to manage the resolution of cancer. Plants in nature are one of the potential sources for obtaining new photosensitizers (PSs) that are less toxic than synthetic compounds. Although several works have been done regarding PDT in the last decades, relatively minor attention has been paid to the study of extracts of medicinal plants called photoactivatable "green drugs''. The objective of the review was to identify common photoactive groups of PSs found in nature, mainly obtained from plants, analyzing their photochemical characteristics, and making a detailed botanical description of the plant groups from which they are obtained. In addition, biotechnological strategies in the cultivation of plant-based in vitro systems to produce natural PSs on a large scale are discussed. To accomplish it, the retrieval of potentially relevant studies was done by systematically searching scientific databases like Google Scholar and PubMed between the months of June-December of the year 2020. The main keywords used as search terms were related to plant-based photosensitizers, naturally occurring photosensitizers, phototoxins, plant cell cultures, hairy root cultures. Plant-based photoactivable compounds with an adequate botanical description of known and unknown plants used in PDT for the eradication of tumor cells are mandatory in the field of phytomedicine against cancer. On the other hand, potential PSs could be explored based on phototoxic plant species that were associated with photosensitization in animals and humans over time. The underlying principles of biotechnological processes for obtaining the secondary metabolites were addressed due to the need for new technologies to produce these potential pharmaceuticals drugs in an ecofriendly approach. The successes of plant-based PSs in PDT encourage researchers to work together with botanists to identify natural photoactive compounds from different plant species that remain to be identified or studied, and thus, they use them as alternatives for the synthesis of PSs with minimal side effects, low toxicity and greater selectivity in the different cancer treatments using PDT. Furthermore, novel biotechnology-based breeding techniques such as targeted genome editing methods will provide significant opportunities to produce natural products in plants, mainly when associated with the recent developments in scale-up capability and bioreactor design.
... The variation in total phenol content among the plant species investigated is quite significant, ranging from 11.9 to 62.7 GAE mg/g dry weigh. Four of the seven plants species showed remarkable amounts of phenolic compounds, the highest value was found in Ageratina cuzcoensis (62.7 GAE mg/g dry weigh), followed by Stevia macbridei (39.0 GAE mg/g dry weigh), Baccharis latifolia [30,31]. Vanillic acid glycoside, protocatechuic acid, caffeic acid, chlorogenic acid and cryptochlorogenic acid were found in Stevia rebaudiana [32]; additionally, gallic acid, rutin and quercetin were reported as the main phenolic compounds in the aqueous extracts of Baccharis trimera [33]. ...
The antioxidant activities of the aqueous extracts of seven wild plants were investigated, using both in vitro and in vivo assays. The former relied on the use of 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and the latter, on the sensibility towards hydrogen peroxide of the yeast sod1 mutant. The studied plants were all wild, collected at the Ccamarrara hill (4000 m.a.s.l. Cusco, Peru), and of the following species: Plantago australis, Baccharis latifolia, Ageratina sternbergiana, Stevia macbridei, Ageratina cuzcoensis, Calceolaria myriophylla, and Adiantum orbignyanum. The DPPH assay demonstrated high antioxidant contents in the dry leaves of all tested plants, with AAEAC values (ascorbic acid equivalent antioxidant capacity) ranging from 20.6 to 72.7 mg/g dry leaves. The antioxidant activities were also evident in the yeast assay, which also allowed distinction between the intracellular and extracellular effects. These in vitro and in vivo studies demonstrate the need to further investigate native wild plants from the Andes as important sources for water-soluble antioxidant compounds.
... Considered as a modern approach, the chemotaxonomy, also known as chemosystematics, classifies the plant on the basis of their chemical composition (Singh 2016). Its use took place during 1970-1980 with the rapid advent of the phytochemical technique (Ramawat 2019). Their findings were helpful to taxonomists, phytochemists, and pharmacologists to solve selected taxonomical problems (Singh 2016). ...
The volatiloma of four Helichrysum species (H. anomalum, H reflexum, H. retortum and H. rugulosum) was analysed here for the first time by GC-MS for a chemotaxonomic contribution to this genus. Sesquiterpene hydrocarbons (SHs) prevailed in the aroma profile (VOCs) of H. reflexum, H. rugulosum and H. anomalum (74.7%, 93.6% and 41.6%, respectively), even though the main compounds were different (β-caryophyllene, α-humulene and α-copaene, respectively). The VOCs of H. retortum showed a high percentage of aliphatic hydrocarbons (NTs, 77.7%) mainly represented by octyl ether. The essential oil composition of each of H. rugulosum and H. retortum followed the same trend as VOCs related to the main class (SHs and NTs, respectively). In H. reflexum EO, the SHs were replaced by oxygenated sesquiterpenes (OS, 49.0%) with caryophyllene oxide as the main compound, while in H. anomalum the SHs were swapped in NTs (37.3%).
Medicinal plants are source of several valuable drugs known as natural products or secondary metabolites. Only a handful of medicinal plants are cultivated while most of them are still collected from wild. Due to the high demand for these products, over-exploitation resulted in endangering the species, loss of biodiversity, adulteration of plant materials and products, and the effect on ecosystem. Plants and plant products are used in many traditional medicines for several centuries. To meet the demand of raw plant material for direct use or industrial use, agrotechnologies have been developed for several medicinal plants, alternative biotechnologies (micropropagation, production in cell cultures grown in shake flasks and bioreactor, transfer of gene/s in plant and microbes, modification of biosynthetic pathways, etc.) and microbial production system have been attempted. Understanding seed and floral biology, development of agrotechnologies and introduction into new habitat may improve the availability of raw medicinal plant material associated with the improved downstream process can affect high recovery. Similarly, the use of sophisticated detection methods, high throughput screening methods, genomics and proteomics can through light on genes involved, types of biomolecules, and new sources of known drugs. Biotechnological methods (elicitation, immobilization, cloning of selected strains, hairy root cultures, and gene manipulation) including gene editing can help in improvement in the production system. With ever-increasing population and reliability of herbal medicine, demand for medicinal plants continues to increase; hence, domestication of plants along with new technologies is a demand of time to meet the challenge of supply of uniform raw material. This brief overview presents state of research on medicinal plants and their products.
