Proteomics Approach Reveals Importance of Herbal Plants in Curing Diseases
Keywords:Drug, Herbal, Medicinal plants, Protein expression.
Herbalism (also herbal medicine) is a science that includes curing diseases by using plant derived compounds. Herbal medicine has important role in curing many diseases and it has very long history worldwide. Compared to single constituent dosage medicines, herbal medicines exhibit combined therapeutic action and can increase the risk of cytotoxicity caused by chemotherapeutic treatments. Proteomic techniques have been applied to study the physiology of medicinal plants and their effects on animals to understand the mechanism involved in pharmacological nature of plants. This review focus on the present status of proteomic research on medicinal plants and covers metabolic pathways involved in synthesis of bioactive compounds; pharmacological studies; and proteomics application to indigenous plants in disease curing. Pool of proteomic knowledge in a biological and medicinal context can boost the effective use of medicinal plants.