The therapeutic properties of plants have been recognised since time immemorial. Many pathological conditions have been treated using plant-derived medicines. These medicines are used as concoctions or concentrated plant extracts without isolation of active compounds. Modern medicine however, requires the isolation and purification of one or two active compounds. There are however a lot of global health challenges with diseases such as cancer, degenerative diseases, HIV/AIDS and diabetes, of which modern medicine is struggling to provide cures. Many times the isolation of “active compound” has made the compound ineffective. Drug discovery is a multidimensional problem requiring several parameters of both natural and synthetic compounds such as safety, pharmacokinetics and efficacy to be evaluated during drug candidate selection. The advent of latest technologies that enhance drug design hypotheses such as Artificial Intelligence, the use of ‘organ-on chip’ and microfluidics technologies, means that automation has become part of drug discovery. This has resulted in increased speed in drug discovery and evaluation of the safety, pharmacokinetics and efficacy of candidate compounds whilst allowing novel ways of drug design and synthesis based on natural compounds. Recent advances in analytical and computational techniques have opened new avenues to process complex natural products and to use their structures to derive new and innovative drugs. Indeed, we are in the era of computational molecular design, as applied to natural products. Predictive computational softwares have contributed to the discovery of molecular targets of natural products and their derivatives. In future the use of quantum computing, computational softwares and databases in modelling molecular interactions and predicting features and parameters needed for drug development, such as pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamics, will result in few false positive leads in drug development. This review discusses plant-based natural product drug discovery and how innovative technologies play a role in next-generation drug discovery.

https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/19/6/1578/pdf/1

Natural Products for Drug Discovery in the 21st Century: Innovations for Novel Drug Discovery.

中国拥有数目庞大、种类繁多的动植物,也有很多珍贵、濒危生物,这些更是异常宝贵的科学资源。DNA条形码技术的出现可以更好的帮助鉴别这些物种,了解其分支来源,甚至可以预知其进化方向。笔者简述了DNA条形码的技术原理与操作步骤及这项技术的产生与发展情况;简要列出了DNA条形码发展过程中的重要进步与研究相对集中的物种;概述了DNA条形码的应用途径及目前DNA条形码研究中存在的主要问题、矛盾、研究思路与发展方向,并对其发展前景做出展望。

国际生命条形码计划—DNA Barcoding

In the past decades, the use of traditional medicine has increased globally, leading to a booming herbal medicine and dietary supplement industry. The increased popularity of herbal products has led to a rise in demand for botanical raw materials. Accurate identification of medicinal herbs is a legal requirement in most countries and prerequisite for delivering a quality product that meets consumer expectations. Traditional identification methods include botanical taxonomy, macroscopic and microscopic examination, and chemical methods. Advances in the identification of biological species using DNA-based techniques have led to the development of a DNA marker-based platform for authentication of plant materials. DNA barcoding, in particular, has been proposed as a means to identify herbal ingredients and to detect adulteration. However, general barcoding techniques using universal primers have been shown to provide mixed results with regard to data accuracy. Further technological advances such as mini-barcodes, digital polymerase chain reaction, and next generation sequencing provide additional tools for the authentication of herbs, and may be successful in identifying processed ingredients used in finished herbal products. This review gives an overview on the strengths and limitations of DNA barcoding techniques for botanical ingredient identification. Based on the available information, we do not recommend the use of universal primers for DNA barcoding of processed plant material as a sole means of species identification, but suggest an approach combining DNA-based methods using genus- or species-specific primers, chemical analysis, and microscopic and macroscopic methods for the successful authentication of botanical ingredients used in the herbal dietary supplement industry.

/pdf/dna-barcoding-for-the-identification-of-botanicals-in-herbal-3ukod5t2md.pdf

DNA Barcoding for the Identification of Botanicals in Herbal Medicine and Dietary Supplements: Strengths and Limitations.

Introduction: Herbal medicines play an important role globally in the health care sector and in industrialised countries they are often considered as an alternative to mono-substance medicines. Current quality and authentication assessment methods rely mainly on morphology and analytical phytochemistry-based methods detailed in pharmacopoeias. Herbal products however are often highly processed with numerous ingredients, and even if these analytical methods are accurate for quality control of specific lead or marker compounds, they are of limited suitability for the authentication of biological ingredients. / Objective: To review the benefits and limitations of DNA barcoding and metabarcoding in complementing current herbal product authentication. / Method: Recent literature relating to DNA based authentication of medicinal plants, herbal medicines and products are summarised to provide a basic understanding of how DNA barcoding and metabarcoding can be applied to this field. / Results: Different methods of quality control and authentication have varying resolution and usefulness along the value chain of these products. DNA barcoding can be used for authenticating products based on single herbal ingredients and DNA metabarcoding for assessment of species diversity in processed products, and both methods should be used in combination with appropriate hyphenated chemical methods for quality control. / Conclusions: DNA barcoding and metabarcoding have potential in the context of quality control of both well and poorly regulated supply systems. Standardisation of protocols for DNA barcoding and DNA sequence-based identification are necessary before DNA-based biological methods can be implemented as routine analytical approaches and approved by the competent authorities for use in regulated procedures.

https://analyticalsciencejournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/pca.2732

Benefits and limitations of DNA barcoding and metabarcoding in herbal product authentication

The global economy of the international trade of herbal products has been increasing by 15% annually, with the raw material for most herbal products being sourced from South and Southeast Asian countries. In India, of the 8000 species of medicinal plants harvested from the wild, approximately 960 are in the active trade. With increasing international trade in herbal medicinal products, there is also increasing concern about the widespread adulteration and species admixtures in the raw herbal trade. The adverse consequences of such species adulteration on the health and safety of consumers have only recently begun to be recognised and documented. We provide a comprehensive review of the nature and magnitude of species adulteration in the raw herbal trade, and identify the underlying drivers that might lead to such adulteration. We also discuss the possible biological and chemical equivalence of species that are used as adulterants and substitutes, and the consequences thereof to consumer health and safety, and propose a framework for the development of a herbal trade authentication service that can help regulate the herbal trade market.

Species Adulteration in the Herbal Trade: Causes, Consequences and Mitigation.

The past couple of decades have witnessed global resurgence of herbal-based health care. As a result, the trade of raw drugs has surged globally. Accurate and fast scientific identification of the plant(s) is the key to success for the herbal drug industry. The conventional approach is to engage an expert taxonomist, who uses a mix of traditional and modern techniques for precise plant identification. However, for bulk identification at industrial scale, the process is protracted and time-consuming. DNA barcoding, on the other hand, offers an alternative and feasible taxonomic tool box for rapid and robust species identification. For the success of DNA barcode, the barcode loci must have sufficient information to differentiate unambiguously between closely related plant species and discover new cryptic species. For herbal plant identification, matK, rbcL, trnH-psbA, ITS, trnL-F, 5S-rRNA and 18S-rRNA have been used as successful DNA barcodes. Emerging advances in DNA barcoding coupled with next-generation sequencing and high-resolution melting curve analysis have paved the way for successful species-level resolution recovered from finished herbal products. Further, development of multilocus strategy and its application has provided new vistas to the DNA barcode-based plant identification for herbal drug industry. For successful and acceptable identification of herbal ingredients and a holistic quality control of the drug, DNA barcoding needs to work harmoniously with other components of the systems biology approach. We suggest that for effectively resolving authentication challenges associated with the herbal market, DNA barcoding must be used in conjunction with metabolomics along with need-based transcriptomics and proteomics.

https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/pbi.12419

DNA barcoding: an efficient tool to overcome authentication challenges in the herbal market.

Compositional variation in the leaf, flower and stem essential oils of Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis L.) from Western-Himalaya

:Mentha longifolia (L.) L. (family: Lamiaceae), commonly known as wild mint, is an extremely variable perennial and strong aromatic herb. The hydrodistilled essential oil of M. longifolia population growing wildly in high altitudes of Western-Himalayan region was analyzed using gas chromatography/flame ionization detector (GC-FID) and GC-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). A total of fifty-five constituents, forming 97.5 % of the total oil composition were identified. The oil was characterised by high amount of oxygenated monoterpenes (74.0 %) and sesquiterpene hydrocarbons (18.0 %). The characteristic constituents of the oil were trans- piperitone epoxide (48.7 %), piperitenone oxide (21.2 %), germacrene D (9.8 %), (E)-caryophyllene (2.3 %), 2- hydroxy piperitone (1.6 %), α-humulene (1.5 %), thymol (1.4 %), and α-longipinene (1.0 %). The essential oil composition of the presently studied M. longifolia population differed considerably, especially in trans-piperitone epoxide content with earlier reports fro...

Essential Oil Composition of Mentha longifolia (L.) L. Collected from Garhwal Region of Western-Himalaya

Essential oils isolated from Artemisia gmelinii Web. ex Stechm, Artemisia roxburghiana Bess. var. purpurascens (Jacq.) Hook and Artemisia maritima L. were analyzed using gas chromatography (GC) and GC–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). Artemisia gmelinii, A. roxburghiana and A. maritima yielded 1.43%, 0.77–0.90% and 1.67% essential oil, respectively. In all, ninety-two constituents, representing 95.6–99.1% of the total oil compositions of different Artemisia spp., were identified. Major constituents of A. gmelinii oil were artemisia ketone (40.7%), cis-chrysanthenyl acetate (21.3%), 1,8-cineole (11.0%) and pinocarvone (8.9%). The oil of A. roxburghiana contained borneol (2.1–18.5%), α-thujone (0.2–13.1%), artemisia alcohol (5.2–11.6%), β-eudesmol (5.0–11.6%), eucarvone (2.0–8.9%), caryophyllene oxide (3.5–8.8%), 1,8-cineole (3.2–8.1%), cis-sabinene hydrate (4.5–7.1%), cis-chrysanthenyl acetate (0.2–5.4%) and terpinen-4-ol (2.2–5.2%) as main constituents. However, the oil of A. maritima was rich in thujones (α-thu...

Compositional characteristics of the volatile oils of three Artemisia spp. from western Himalaya

Skimmia laureola (Candolle) Siebold & Zucc. ex Walp. is an important traditional medicinal and aromatic plant of India. The leaf and stem essential oils of S. laureola, originated from high altitudes of Indian Himalayan region were analysed using capillary gas chromatography-flame ionization detector (GC-FID) and GC-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). A total of forty-eight constituents, representing 94.9 % of the leaf oil and twenty-six constituents, forming 95.4 % of the stem oil compositions were identified. Major constituents of the oils were linalyl acetate (17.9-44.7 %), linalool (12.5-22.0 %), α-terpinyl acetate (6.2-9.3 %), α-terpineol (5.5-11.1 %), geranyl acetate (4.8-10.6 %), dictamnol (3.9-13.1 %), myrcene (1.1-2.3 %), neryl acetate (2.1-7.1 %), neoiso-dihydrocarveol acetate (0.0-2.0 %) and (2E,6E)-farnesyl acetate (0.2-1.8 %). Leaf and stem derived essential oils  were quite different in their compositions. Pregeijerene (C12Chydrocarbon), a commonly reported constituent of S. laureola was not ...

Rakesh Tiwari

Papers

DNA barcoding: an efficient tool to overcome authentication challenges in the herbal market.

Compositional variation in the leaf, flower and stem essential oils of Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis L.) from Western-Himalaya

Essential Oil Composition of Mentha longifolia (L.) L. Collected from Garhwal Region of Western-Himalaya

Compositional characteristics of the volatile oils of three Artemisia spp. from western Himalaya

Chemical Investigation of Skimmia laureola (Rutaceae) Essential Oil for Characterization of New Constituents