Evolutionary prediction of medicinal properties in the genus Euphorbia L.

Abstract

The current decrease of new drugs brought to the market has fostered renewed interest in plant-based drug discovery. Given the alarming rate of biodiversity loss, systematic methodologies in finding new plant-derived drugs are urgently needed. Medicinal uses of plants were proposed as proxy for bioactivity, and phylogenetic patterns in medicinal plant uses have suggested that phylogeny can be used as predictive tool. However, the common practice of grouping medicinal plant uses into standardised categories may restrict the relevance of phylogenetic predictions. Standardised categories are mostly associated to systems of the human body and only poorly reflect biological responses to the treatment. Here we show that medicinal plant uses interpreted from a perspective of a biological response can reveal different phylogenetic patterns of presumed underlying bioactivity compared to standardised methods of medicinal plant use classification. In the cosmopolitan and pharmaceutically highly relevant genus Euphorbia L., identifying plant uses modulating the inflammatory response highlighted a greater phylogenetic diversity and number of potentially promising species than standardised categories. Our interpretation of medicinal plant uses may therefore allow for a more targeted approach for future phylogeny-guided drug discovery at an early screening stage, which will likely result in higher discovery rates of novel chemistry with functional biological activity.

Novel Approach to Classify Plants Based on Metabolite-Content Similarity

“…Some plant classes are represented by more medicinal plants than others. It is suggested that there is a phylogenetic pattern in medicinal properties even within one genus [45–47]. A similar distribution could also be observed in our classification that plants with certain uses are concentrated in the same group.…”

Jolkinolide A and Jolkinolide B Inhibit Proliferation of A549 Cells and Activity of Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells

“…E. fischeriana Steud, Euphorbia ebracteolata Hayata, and over 2000 other species of the Euphorbia genus are found in Europe, Asia, and other continents [33,34]. A number of studies have reported on the broad-spectrum anti-tumor activity of E. fisheriana [35], which has also been shown to exhibit anti-HIV and anti-epileptic activities [36] and has been used for the treatment of edema, ascites, and pleural effusion [10,11,37].…”

Assessing the utility of conserving evolutionary history

“…A second study offered consistent patterns: although PD was not evaluated directly, phylogenetic clustering of traditional medicines (i.e. across different ailments) was found for South African, Australian and New Zealand floras (20000 species in all; Ernst et al ., ; Saslis‐Lagoudakis et al ., ). If phenotypic diversity tends to contribute positively to beneficial uses currently, it seems likely that even in an uncertain future, TR or PD would be predicted to make positive, and potentially novel, contributions.…”