Mining Therapeutic Efficacy from Treasure Chest of Biodiversity and Chemodiversity: Pharmacophylogeny of Ranunculales Medicinal Plants

Abstract

Ranunculales is an order of angiosperms, containing 7 families, i.e., Ranunculaceae (at least 50 genera, >2,000 species), Berberidaceae (17 genera, 650 species), Menispermaceae (65 genera, >350 species), Lardizabalaceae (9 genera, 50 species), Circaeasteraceae (2 species), Papaveraceae (38 genera, >700 species), and Eupteleaceae (2 species, Appendix 1). Ranunculales belongs to the basal eudicots, in which it is the most basal clade; its widely known members include poppies, barberries, monseed, akebia and buttercupss. The chemodiversity of Ranunculaceae, the fl agship family of Ranunculales, and their correlation with the biodiversity and pharmacotherapy, have been systematically reviewed by us in the context of pharmacophylogeny. (1) In recent years, the research enthusiasm for the other 4 major Ranunculales families has been growing rapidly, as plants of these families also meet human needs for food, fl avours, fragrances, and not the least, medicines during long history. Ranunculales plants form the basis of sophisticated traditional medicine systems, e.g., Chinese medicine (CM) and Ayurveda medical system. (2) These systems of medicine give rise to some important Ranunculalesbased drugs still in use today. (3,4) According to incomplete statistics, 573 Ranunculaceae and 308 Berberidaceae species were in medicinally hot nodes; (4) the therapeutic efficacy of 2 families differed substantially. For instance, up to 361 Chinese Ranunculaceae species are used against musculoskeletal diseases, followed by 321 against hepatic diseases, 242 against circulatory diseases, and 210 against skin diseases, etc.; in contrast, as many as 251 Chinese Berberidaceae species are used against eyesight diseases, followed by 249 against hepatic diseases, 242 against digestive diseases and 90 against oral diseases, etc. Nevertheless, except Ranunculaceae, the

Phylogenomics and phylogeography of Menispermum (Menispermaceae)

“…In this study, of the six newly proposed hotspot regions, with nucleotide diversity (Pi) values > 0.1 just four loci (trnH-psbA, ndhF-rpl32, trnK-rps16 & trnP-psaJ) are adequate to recover the monophyly of all genera and species that are represented by more than one individual (Table S3). This is encouraging and suggest that these markers will be useful candidate DNA barcodes for further studies on phylogeny and phylogeography of Menispermaceae (Barbosa-Filho et al, 2000;Singh and Bedi, 2016;He et al, 2018;Hina et al, 2020;Hao et al, 2022).…”

Characteristics and Prospects of Use of Plants of the Genus Anemone L. In Medicine

“…У видах роду Anemone L. у великій кількості міститься олеїнова кислота, 1 (29) січень-березень, 2024 «Art of Medicine» також наявні кумарини, флавоноїди та глікозиди (ранункулін, анемонін, протоанемонін), крім того, знаходять вияв органічні кислоти (хелідонова кислота), камфора, аскорбінова кислота [5,11]. Анемонам, як і іншим представникам родини Жовтецеві, характерна наявність бензилізохінолінових алкалоїдів [12]. Хімічний склад деяких рослин роду Анемона (Anemone L.) наведено в табл.…”

Conservation Tillage in Medicinal Plant Cultivation in China: What, Why, and How

“…In mature forests, overstory diversity is important for controlling soil-borne pathogens, and understory biodiversity is critical and beneficial for soil nutrient availability, plant production, soil-plant mutualistic relationships, and maintaining ecosystem multi-services [101]. Many medicinal plants, such as Panax, Sinopodophyllum hexandrum, Polygonatum, and Amomum villosum, are suitable for understory cultivation [73,102,103] (Figure 1), in which NT or RT is implemented. Long-term, unreasonable farming methods threaten soil health and restrict the sustainable development of ecological agriculture [104].…”

“…Soil health indicators include physical, chemical, biological, and other ones, all of which can be influenced by NT and relevant manipulations (Figure 2). Importantly, such influences are desired to achieve the target outcomes, e.g., the robust growth of medicinal species and preferred plant-based medicinal compounds [102,108].…”