Distribution of Therapeutic Efficacy of Ranunculales Plants Used by Ethnic Minorities on the Phylogenetic Tree of Chinese Species

Abstract

The medicinal properties of plants can be evolutionarily predicted by phylogeny-based methods, which, however, have not been used to explore the regularity of therapeutic effects of Chinese plants utilized by ethnic minorities. This study aims at exploring the distribution law of therapeutic efficacy of Ranunculales plants on the phylogenetic tree of Chinese species. We collected therapeutic efficacy data of 551 ethnomedicinal species belonging to five species-rich families of Ranunculales; these therapeutic data were divided into 15 categories according to the impacted tissues and organs. The phylogenetic tree of angiosperm species was used to analyze the phylogenetic signals of ethnomedicinal plants by calculating the net relatedness index (NRI) and nearest taxon index (NTI) in R language. The NRI results revealed a clustered structure for eight medicinal categories (poisoning/intoxication, circulatory, gastrointestinal, eyesight, oral, pediatric, skin, and urinary disorders) and overdispersion for the remaining seven (neurological, general, hepatobiliary, musculoskeletal, otolaryngologic, reproductive, and respiratory disorders), while the NTI metric identified the clustered structure for all. Statistically, NRI and NTI values were significant in 5 and 11 categories, respectively. It was found that Mahonia eurybracteata has therapeutic effects on all categories. iTOL was used to visualize the distribution of treatment efficacy on species phylogenetic trees. By figuring out the distribution of therapeutic effects of Ranunculales medicinal plants, the importance of phylogenetic methods in finding potential medicinal resources is highlighted; NRI, NTI, and similar indices can be calculated to help find taxonomic groups with medicinal efficacy based on the phylogenetic tree of flora in different geographic regions.

The genus Chrysanthemum: Phylogeny, biodiversity, phytometabolites, and chemodiversity

“…The studies of pharmacophylogeny are conducive to the sustainable conservation and rational utilization of Chrysanthemum resources, as well as the inheritance and innovation of traditional medicine. The medicinal properties of plants can be predicted by virtue of phylogenetic methods ( Hao et al, 2022a , b ), which has been utilized to explore the regularity of bioactivities of Asteraceae and Ranunculales plants against diseases of multiple human organs. The mapping of different types of Chrysanthemum (and related taxonomic groups) compounds onto the species phylogenetic tree could also be beneficial to mining novel sources of economically important chemicals.…”

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

“…The 7 families of Ranunculales are rich in medicinal species frequently utilized by traditional medical systems and ethnomedicine, (187) which represent a treasure chest of biodiversity and chemodiversity. (188) The phylogenetically related species often have similar phytometabolites, and therefore similar bioactivities.…”

“…With the development of R language software packages, the distribution of therapeutic compounds and effi cacy of Ranunculales species on the seed plant Tree of Life (5,6,191) can be quantitatively investigated. (4,187) The absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion/ toxicity (ADMET) properties of phytometabolites have the signifi cant impact on the therapeutic effi cacy; (180) the structurally analogous compounds could have similar (or distinct) metabolism and pharmacokinetic attributes. In the early stage of drug discovery and development, the ADMET properties should also be taken into account in the context of pharmacophylogeny, so as to improve the theoretical basis and application value of pharmacophylogeny.…”

Editorial: Plant-derived natural compounds in drug discovery: The prism perspective between plant phylogeny, chemical composition, and medicinal efficacy

“…Thus, they are more likely to possess analogous biosynthesis pathways and their chemical arsenals could be more similar (Liu et al, 2021). The various tiers of chemical similarity result in the global resemblance of bioactivity or pharmacological efficacy (Hao et al, 2022a;2022b Liu et al). Pharmacophylogeny successfully guides the development of novel curative taxa (Hao and Xiao, 2020), while circumventing the limitations of old-style approaches and enabling the targeted studies.…”

“…A triple helix systems perspective, i.e., an essentially holistic view, would be established if we qualitatively and quantitatively investigate the association between molecular phylogeny and phytochemical data (Zhang et al, 2020), between phylogeny and bioactivity/efficacy (Hao et al, 2022a;2022b), and between phytometabolite and bioactivity (Song et al; Sun et al). Based on extensive ethnomedicinal uses, the thorough phytochemistry and bioactivity characterizations contribute to the safe administration of herbals and discovery of lead compounds (Souza et al, 2018).…”