Plant Pharmacophylogeny: Review and Future Directions
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hinese Journal of Integrative Medicine
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Available online at link.springer.com/journal/11655 Journal homepage: www.cjim.cn/zxyjhen/zxyjhen/ch/index.aspx E-mail: [email protected]
Review
Plant Pharmacophylogeny: Review and Future Directions GONG Xue1, YANG Min1, HE Chun-nian2, BI Ya-qiong3, ZHANG Chun-hong1, LI Min-hui1,3,4,5, and XIAO Pei-gen2 ABSTRACT Medicinal plants have provided numerous medicinal active ingredients for thousands of years and these ingredients have been used in Chinese medicine (CM) and traditional pharmacologies worldwide. Recently, the exploitation and utilisation of medicinal plant resources has increased significantly. The results of the studies have led to the identification of many active components, such as steroidal alkaloids, saponins, terpenoids, and glycosides, in various medicinal plants with different evolutionary levels. Moreover, research on the chemical classification, molecular phylogeny, and pharmacological activity of medicinal plants is increasing in popularity. Pharmacophylogeny is an interdisciplinary topic that studies the correlation between plant phylogeny, chemical composition, and curative effects (pharmacological activity and the traditional curative effect) of medicinal plants. In addition, it provides the basic tools to enable research and development of CM resources. This literature review, based on the genetic relationship between phytogroup and species, highlights the formation process, research content, applications, and future directions of pharmacophylogeny. KEYWORDS pharmacophylogeny, phytogroup, molecular phylogeny, chemical composition, curative effect For many centuries, medicinal plants have been an important source of medicines. Moreover, most Chinese herbal medicines originate from plants, hundreds of thousands of plants in the world have gradually evolved over a long historical period. During this process, the morphological, physiological, and biochemical characteristics, chemical components, and corresponding traditional curative effects of medicinal plants form a close or distant phylogenetic relationship(1) e.g., Ranunculaceae (Appendix 1). Based on this foundation, academician XIAO Pei-gen theorised that pharmacophylogeny is a new, interdisciplinary, and engaging subject that extensively studies the relationship between chemical composition and efficacy (traditional curative effect and pharmacological activity) of medicinal plants.(2) The core of the theory is to connect the chemical or bioactive components and the curative effect of medicinal plants. Moreover, it is emphasised that genetically close medicinal plants contain similar chemical or bioactive composition and have similar curative effects. This concept has attracted wide attention of the medical field. In addition, it has emerged as a more important part for the exploration of the distribution of chemical components in medicinal plants. (3) Pharmacophylogeny involves many interdisciplinary subjects, such as plant phylogenetics, plant taxonomy, phytochemistry, pharmacology, molecu
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