Plants have been
employed as a therapeutic agent since the dawn of time, and their applications
have evolved alongside human civilization. Plants' healing potential was
discovered by trial and error, and the knowledge was passed down verbally and
through practise from generation to generation. Plants or plant parts were used
as medicine before the 16th century, and during the 16th and 18th centuries, a
mixture of plants or plant parts was employed as medication. Pure chemicals
have been extracted from plants and utilised as medicine since the beginning of
the 18th century. Today, over 6,00,000 plant-derived chemicals have been
isolated from various plants, and 11 percent of the WHO's 252 basic and
necessary medications are completely of plant origin, with a considerable
proportion of synthetic drugs generated from natural precursors. Because of
their unparalleled structural characteristics and functional diversity,
plant-derived medications have been proven to be more stable, have fewer
adverse effects, and have pleotropic druggability. Furthermore, plant-derived
chemicals are generated within the living system and evaluated and adjusted
periodically throughout time as part of the evolutionary process. Plants are
the finest synthesisers of nanoparticles with a variety of medicinal
properties, in addition to phytomolecules. These functional groups may bond
with metal ions and produce nanoparticles in herbal medicines or plant
extracts, such as C=C – alkenyl, C=N – amide, O=H – phenolic and alcohol, N=H –
amine, C-H and COO – carboxylic acid, and so on. Cu, Co, Ag, Au, Pd, Pt, Zn,
Mn, Ti, Ni, Fe, and other metal nanoparticles, as well as alloys of Au, Al, and
Zn, were effectively biosynthesised. The versatility of plant-derived drugs in
various aspects such as historical background, plant-derived drugs in modern
medicine, importance of medicinal plants in drug discovery, plant-derived drugs
- advantages and disadvantages, characteristic features of plant-derived drugs,
major challenges in plant-derived drug discovery, value and market potential,
approaches to plant-derived drug discovery, importance of phytochemical and
pharmacological screening, drug discovery .
Author(S) Details
S. Sreekumar
Biotechnology &
Bioinformatics Division, Saraswathy Thangavelu Centre, KSCSTE-Jawaharlal Nehru
Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute, Puthenthope,
Thiruvananthapuram, Pin 695 586, Kerala, India.
N. C. Nisha
Biotechnology & Bioinformatics Division, Saraswathy Thangavelu Centre,
KSCSTE-Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute,
Puthenthope, Thiruvananthapuram, Pin 695 586, Kerala, India.
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