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Theme Issue Honoring Professor Pamela Weathers’ 75th Birthday: Plant Metabolites–Chemistry, Biology and Applications

A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Natural Products Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2023) | Viewed by 3310

Special Issue Editors

Department of Botany, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India
Interests: secondary metabolites; phytochemicals; medicinal plants; essential oils; natural products
Department of Horticultural Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
Interests: phytochemistry; metabolomics; metabolic engineering

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleague,

This Special Issue of Molecules, “Theme Issue Honoring Professor Pamela Weathers’ 75th Birthday: Plant Metabolites–Chemistry, Biology and Applications”, presents recent developments in the rapidly expanding and exciting field of plant metabolite application.

Prof. Weathers is an internationally recognized expert on Artemisia annua and artemisinin, having worked with the plant and its phytochemicals, including the antimalarial drug artemisinin, for over 25 years. She is a Fellow of AAAS and SIVB and has won numerous awards, given many national and international presentations, and reviews manuscripts for numerous journals and proposals for various national and international funding agencies. Her lab was the first to genetically transform A. annua. Of her >130 peer-reviewed papers, about a third focus on bioreactors and another third on artemisinin or A. annua, which now also includes A. afra. As of January 2022, her Google h-index was 46, with nearly 6,500 citations and an i10 index of 96. She previously spearheaded the edible A. annua concept for treating malaria and other diseases and still leads research on the project to establish proof-of-concept. She has supervised >20 MS and 16 PhD students and more than 80 undergraduate projects, with about half of all theses and projects related to artemisinin/Artemisia. For over 30 years, she has managed a multidisciplinary research lab that may consist of a mix of visiting scientists, postdocs, and graduate and undergraduate students in engineering, biology, and biochemistry. Besides teaching 2–4 courses a year, she has obtained significant funding from NIH, NSF, NASA, USDA, and the private sector for her research and students. She has also consulted to the Biotechnology Industry since the mid-1980s.

Plants are the foundation of numerous compounds that are synthesized via assimilated complex biosynthetic routes. Plant metabolites are organic compounds synthesized via enzyme-mediated processes. These plant metabolites are important for both essential (proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates) as well as specific and specialized functions (anthocyanin, carotenoid, etc.). Primary metabolites are essential for the survival of organisms, and any alterations in their levels are likely to have severe major manifestations. However, secondary metabolites are those metabolites considered to have specialized functions and play a role in providing quality of life to the producer organism. Plants have evolved an incredible array of metabolic pathways leading to molecules/compounds capable of responding promptly and effectively to stress situations imposed by biotic and abiotic factors, some of which supply the ever-growing needs of humankind for natural chemicals, such as in terms of pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, agrochemicals, food and chemical additives, biofuels, and biomass. Humans have relied on plants for various needs since ancient times, and their population still seems sufficient for fulfilling our demands. In foreseeable future, however, we will be forced to think about the accessibility of resources for the generations to come. For these reasons, we must look for alternative options of resources for food/food supplements, medicines, and other essential items.

This Special Issue on plant metabolites aims to cover their isolation, biosynthesis, and structural elucidation; analytical characterization; biological activity (pharmacology and toxicology) including in vitro and in vivo pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics, ethnomedicinal, and ethnopharmacological studies; environmental and genetic transformation-based modulation of biochemical pathways; and studies on chemical ecology and other aspects related to plant metabolites.

Dr. Tariq Aftab
Prof. Dr. Deyu Xie
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • phytochemical
  • secondary metabolites
  • genetic engineering
  • artemisinin
  • metabolic pathways

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

22 pages, 4855 KiB  
Review
Bioactive Chemical Constituents and Pharmacological Activities of Ponciri Fructus
by Gopal Lamichhane, Jitendra Pandey and Hari Prasad Devkota
Molecules 2023, 28(1), 255; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28010255 - 28 Dec 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2611
Abstract
Ponciri Fructus is a crude drug obtained from the dried immature fruits of Poncirus trifoliata (L). Raf. (Syn. Citrus trifoliata L.). This study aims to compile and analyze the ethnomedicinal uses, bioactive constituents, and pharmacological activities of Ponciri Fructus. Various online bibliographic databases [...] Read more.
Ponciri Fructus is a crude drug obtained from the dried immature fruits of Poncirus trifoliata (L). Raf. (Syn. Citrus trifoliata L.). This study aims to compile and analyze the ethnomedicinal uses, bioactive constituents, and pharmacological activities of Ponciri Fructus. Various online bibliographic databases namely, SciFinder, PubMed, Google Scholar, and Web of Science were used for collecting information on traditional uses, biological activities, and bioactive constituents. Concerning ethnomedicinal uses, Ponciri Fructus is extensively used in traditional Korean, Chinese, and Kampo medicines to mitigate allergic reactions, inflammation, edema, digestive complications, respiratory problems, spleen-related problems, liver complications, neuronal pain, hyperlipidemia, rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular problems, hernia, sinusitis, and insomnia. Several studies have shown that Ponciri Fructus is a major source of diverse classes of bioactive compounds namely flavonoids, terpenoids, coumarins, phytosterols, and alkaloids. Several in vivo and in vitro pharmacological activity evaluations such as antidiabetic, anti-obesity, anti-inflammatory, antiallergic, antimelanogenic, gastroprotective, anticancer, and neuroprotective effects have been conducted from Ponciri Fructus. However, scientific investigations focusing on bioassay-guided isolation and identification of specific bioactive constituents are limited. Therefore, an in-depth scientific investigation of Ponciri Fructus focusing on bioassay-guided isolation, mechanism based pharmacological studies, pharmacokinetic studies, and evaluation of possible toxicities is necessary in the future. Full article
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