Molecular confirmation, constituents and cytotoxicity evaluation of two medicinal Piper species used by the Manobo tribe of Agusan del Sur, Philippines

Quantitative ethnopharmacological documentation and molecular confirmation of medicinal plants used by the Manobo tribe of Agusan del Sur, Philippines

“…However, molecular confirmation of all species pairs by the locals did not necessarily point to the same species but were mostly referring to another species. An example study resolving species identity of Piper species used by the Agusan Manobo being a sterile species and unidentifiable by present morphology having confusing local names with the initial word "Lunas" has been molecularly confirmed lately using integrative molecular approach [19]. Thus, it is always important in any ethnomedicinal, ethnobotanical, and ethnopharmacological studies to obtain the correct identification of medicinal plants by integrating molecular data like this for accuracy, consistency, and dependable species identity for future pharmacological evaluation and natural product investigations.…”

“…Several coding and non-coding regions were tested in plants, but a single locus has limited resolving capabilities for closely related species [79,80]. While local names are essential in ethnopharmacological studies, complexities of these local names could lead to confusion and ambiguity, hence, a need for further molecular analysis [19]. A number of ethnobotanical studies consider vernacular names coupled with morphological and molecular confirmation as part of the identification diagnostics [19,42,[81][82][83].…”

“…Of all documented Philippine medicinal plants, the top list of medicinal plants used for TCAM has been enumerated by [12]. Most of these Philippine medicinal plants have been evaluated to scientifically validate folkloric claims like the recent studies of [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20].…”

“…They are acknowledged to be the largest Philippine ethnic group occupying a wide area of distribution than other indigenous communities like the Bagobo, Higaonon, and Atta [30]. The Manobo ("river people") was the term named after the "Mansuba" which means river people [19], coined from the "man" (people) and the "suba" (river) [31]. Among the provinces dwelled by the Manobo, the province of Agusan del Sur is mostly inhabited by this ethnic group known as the Agusan Manobo.…”

“…Despite the limited funds and qualified personnel in the region, it is very relevant to recognize the role of ethnopharmacology and species identification in the conservation of these plant genetic resources with medicinal properties. With the introduction of the application of molecular barcodes for species identification by [35], the problem of unauthenticated medicinal species can now be resolved [19,[36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43].…”