Leveraging biodiversity knowledge for potential phyto-therapeutic applications

Area of Science:

• Integrative biology and pharmacognosy.
• Biodiversity informatics and drug discovery.

Background:

• The plant kingdom offers vast, yet largely untapped, therapeutic potential.
• Traditional knowledge of plant-based medicines is experiencing a resurgence.
• Current data on botanical therapeutics are fragmented and disconnected from pharmacological resources.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the feasibility of a cross-domain pipeline linking biodiversity information with phyto-therapeutic assessment.
• To identify challenges and advantages in connecting plant-based data for drug discovery.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of the ClinicalTrials.gov database to identify plant-based interventions.
• Cross-referencing identified plant species with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

Main Results:

• Approximately 15% of drug interventions in ClinicalTrials.gov were potentially plant-related.
• Sixty percent of these plant-related interventions were concentrated within 10 major taxonomic families.
• Around 3.7% of the associated plant species were identified as endangered.

Conclusions:

• A significant opportunity exists for developing novel plant-based drugs.
• Taxonomic relationships reveal plant families that are promising for bioprospecting.
• Developing integrated data pipelines is crucial for advancing botanical drug discovery.