Establishing a genomic database for the medicinal plants in the Brazilian Pharmacopoeia

Brazil is exceptionally abundant in medicinal plant resources and has a rich ethnopharmacological history. Brazilian Pharmacopoeia (BP) acts as a national standard that regulates drug quality and has six published editions. Recent genomic approaches have led to a resurgence of interest in herbal drugs. The genomic data of plants has been used for pharmaceutical applications, protecting natural resources, and efficiently regulating the market. However, there are few genomic databases specifically for medicinal plants, and the establishment of a database that focuses on the herbs contained in the BP is urgently required.

The medicinal plant species included in each edition of the BP were analyzed to understand the evolution of the Brazilian herbal drugs. The data of 82 plants in the BP were collected and categorized into four sections: DNA barcodes, super-barcodes, genomes, and sequencing data. A typical web server architecture pattern was used to build the database and website. Furthermore, the cp-Gs of the Aloe genus in the database were analyzed as an illustration.

A new database, the Brazilian Pharmacopoeia Genomic Database (BPGD) was constructed and is now publicly accessible. A BLAST server for species identification and sequence searching with the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2), the intergenic region (psbA-trnH), and the chloroplast genome (cp-G) of Brazilian medicinal plants was also embedded in the BPGD. The database has 753 ITS2 of 76 species, 553 psbA-trnH and 190 genomes (whole genome and chloroplast genome) of 57 species. In addition, it contains 37 genome sequence data sets of 24 species and 616 transcriptome sequence data sets of 34 species and also includes 187 cp-Gs representing 57 medicinal species in the BP. Analyses of the six cp-Gs of three Aloe species identified the variable regions in the cp-Gs. These can be used to identify species and understand the intraspecific relationships.

This study presents the first genomic database of medicinal plants listed in the latest BP. It serves as an efficient platform to obtain and analyze genomic data, accelerate studies regarding Brazilian medicinal plants and facilitate the rational development on their market regulation.