Botanical Bioactives for Therapeutics and Human Healthcare

The healthcare system relies significantly on plant-based medicinal systems. Botanical bioactives—such as polyphenols, saponins, terpenes, and alkaloids—are among the most prevalent bioactive substances, widely used due to their remarkable chemical diversity. The unique structures and richness of these compounds underlie a broad range of chemical properties and biological activities, including antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and antioxidant effects. These attributes make plant-derived compounds invaluable in the development of drugs for various diseases and conditions. As plants are a rich source of beneficial phytochemicals, pharmaceutical industries are increasingly turning towards natural products. Recent advancements in understanding plant metabolism, biosynthetic pathways, and chemodiversity have further revealed the immense chemical potential of plants—leading to the discovery of novel plant-derived compounds. The promise of botanical bioactives continues to grow, offering exciting opportunities for the development of new plant-based therapeutics and dietary interventions aimed at enhancing human well-being.

A vast array of bioactive compounds has been reported from plants, representing promising sources of unique and diverse chemical scaffolds and offering new opportunities for the discovery of structurally novel molecules. This research topic aims to provide insights into recent developments in the discovery, chemical characterization, and diversity of botanical bioactives. The goal of is to highlight the latest advancements related to the discovery of phytochemicals, biosynthetic pathways, chemodiversity, and chemical profiling of botanicals, ultimately contributing to the continued expansion of plant-derived chemical resources for future health applications.

This research topic welcomes submissions in the area of discovery, development and understanding of the chemical diversity and properties of botanical bioactives relevant to human health especially those that focus on:

• Medicinal Plants and their phytochemical properties
• Indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants and their phytochemical diversity
• Phytocompound isolation, characterization and analysis
• Biosynthetic pathways and metabolism of plant bioactives
• Omics technologies and bioinformatics related to botanical bioactives
• Nanotechnology and delivery systems for botanical bioactives
• Discovery and analysis of novel plant-derived compounds

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/

Article types and fees

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

• Clinical Trial
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• ... 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:

• 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: Drug discovery, phytomedicines, Medicinal plants, Botanical bioactives, Pharmacology, Phytocompounds, Human healthcare, Ethnopharmacology

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.