Bioinformatic for Identifying Pharmacological Targets of Medicinal Plants: A New Frontier in Plant Sciences and Pharmacology

Medicinal plants have long been valued for their therapeutic potential, offering a diverse range of bioactive compounds that are utilized in treating various diseases. These plants produce specialized metabolites that play crucial roles in their ecological defense and survival. Given the complexity of plant metabolomes, it is essential to explore how these compounds contribute to the medicinal properties of plants at a molecular level. Although many medicinal plants have been studied for their bioactivity, the pharmacological targets behind remain underexplored, particularly in the context of systems biology and bioinformatics.

This Research Topic aims to explore the application of bioinformatics tools in deciphering the Pharmacological and biological targets of medicinal plants. We focus on how cutting-edge bioinformatics and computational biology methods can unravel the molecular pathways through which these plants exert their therapeutic effects. The topic will emphasize the integration of omics data, such as genomics, transcriptomics, and metabolomics, to construct a holistic understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the therapeutic potential of medicinal plants.

We invite contributions that examine the use of bioinformatics in the analysis of medicinal plants, particularly those that integrate different omics approaches to reveal insights into plant metabolic processes, gene expression, and protein functions associated with disease treatment. Studies that leverage advanced computational tools to identify pharmacological and biological targets, predict drug interactions, or elucidate plant-drug interactions are especially encouraged.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

- Application of bioinformatics tools to identify key bioactive compounds in medicinal plants.

- Integration of multi-omics data (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics) to understand the molecular basis of disease treatment by medicinal plants.

- Computational modeling of plant metabolic pathways involved in the biosynthesis of therapeutic compounds.

- Analysis of gene expression and regulatory networks governing the production of medicinal plant metabolites.

- Prediction of drug interactions and the identification of potential pharmacological and biological targets using bioinformatics approaches.

- Utilization of machine learning and AI techniques in the discovery of bioactive compounds from medicinal plants.

- Exploration of the molecular mechanisms of plant-derived compounds in treating specific diseases through bioinformatics analyses.

- Comparative genomics and metabolomics to understand how environmental or evolutionary factors shape the therapeutic potential of medicinal plants.

Please note: this special issue has a clear focus on bioinformatics and systems biology in the Pharmacological and biological targets of medicinal plants, and articles are encouraged to include studies related to clinical pharmacology, bioactivity experiments, or medical applications, but not stand-alone clinical studies.

Studies need to comply with the best practice guidelines of the leading journals for pharmacological studies on plant extract / natural products including the Four Pillars of Best Practice in Ethnopharmacology and follow the standards established in the ConPhyMP statement: Front. Pharmacol. 13:953205. A detailed description of the material studied, its extraction and processing is essential and manuscripts which lack such a description will be desk-rejected. You can freely download the full version here. Please self-assess your MS using the ConPhyMP tool: https://ga-online.org/best-practice/. Network studies using complex mixtures focusing on multiple targets will generally not be accepted and desk-rejected.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Clinical Trial
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Clinical Trial
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Bioinformatics, Medicinal Plants, Omics Data Integration, Molecular Biology, Pharmacological and biological targets

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.