September
11, 2012 in
Medications (Medical Xpress)
New
research from the University of Reading , The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
and Imperial College London published on 10 September in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) could allow biopharmaceutical companies to
distinguish groups of plants most likely to be beneficial to our health.
Throughout history plants have been used for their medicinal properties. According to the World Health
Organisation approximately 25% of medicines are plant-derived and many
pharmaceutical drugs are derived from plants that were first used in
traditional systems of medicine, including drugs used in the treatment of
breast cancer and heart disease.
As plant populations are decimated by changing
land use, climate change and over exploitation, identifying the species most
likely to contribute to future health needs could hardly be more urgent or
significant. But with tens of thousands of species used by different cultures,
identifying those likely to be of benefit is a time consuming and expensive
process.
By studying and recording over 1,500 medicinal plants reported to have
health benefits in three continents, the researchers created a family tree of
plant species for each area, demonstrating how medicinal plants relate to each
other. They then combined the trees to create a 'super' family tree
representing 20,000 species to reveal which medicinal plants from different
areas were related.
The results were extraordinary. Not only did the
researchers find examples of very closely related plants being used as
medicines in different parts of the world, they also discovered they were being
used to treat the same ailments. Furthermore, they found that many modern day
drugs come from these groups of closely related plants.
This study, the first
of its kind, could enhance the success rate of companies involved in
bio-prospecting, the search for new, economically-valuable biological products.
Plants have a vital role to play medically. Paclitaxel, which is used as
a treatment for breast cancer, derives from yew trees, while foxgloves contain
a key ingredient used in cardiotonics which treat heart failure.
Dr Julie Hawkins,
from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Reading,
said: "Our study examined plants known to be used medicinally in
Nepal, New Zealand and the Cape of South Africa, areas unlikely to have
exchanged information about medicinal properties of plants so would be using
these plants after discovering them independently. We found that plants known
to be useful in all three separate regions were from groups that were closely
related.
"Across the whole of the super tree we found many groups of
related plants that had been independently discovered. One example is that
plants from the soapberry family are used in Nepal , the Cape
of South Africa and New Zealand
"Our super tree will help companies
involved in bioprospecting narrow their search for plants with medicinal
properties which could lead to new disease fighting drugs." continued Dr
Hawkins. "It's incredibly exciting to think that communities around the
world that weren't in contact with each other have sampled related plants and
are using them to treat the same things."
Co-author of the study,
Professor Vincent Savolainen from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial
College London, and RBG Kew, said: "This super family tree of medicinal
plants will help create new opportunities to make modern medicines from the active
ingredients in traditional medical treatments. I strongly urge biomedical
scientists to use our study to speed up their search for innovative new
medicines, but in doing so they have to fulfil a duty to the people who
discovered the beneficial effects of such traditional medicines.
"Many
have signed up to the International Convention on Biological Diversity, which
requires individuals and companies to acknowledge the origins of their
discoveries. Now, more should be done to follow this through, for example by
sharing the financial benefits of a commercialised drug, or involving
traditional practitioners in the development of modern medical treatments in
their countries of origin."
Dr Haris Saslis-Lagoudakis, who contributed to
this research as part of his PhD thesis, said: "Traditional medicine has
been neglected in recent years in research on the discovery of new medicinal
plants and pharmaceutical drugs. It is fascinating to demonstrate that
traditional knowledge that has been compiled through centuries by local
communities around the globe could hold the key to curing modern-day
diseases."
More information: "Phylogenies reveal predictive power of
traditional medicine in bioprospecting," by C. Harris Saslis-Lagoudakis et
al. PNAS, 2012.
Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences Provided by University of Reading
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