Plant-Based Products and Ingredients: Isolation, Characterization, Bioactivity and Applications
A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Phytochemistry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2025 | Viewed by 1009
Special Issue Editors
Interests: secondary metabolites; allelophathy; allelochemicals; phenols; phytotoxicity, bioherbicides, biochars; hydrochars; soil amendments
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
2. Centre for Research and Technology of Agro-Environmental and Biological Sciences (CITAB-UTAD), 5000-801 Vila Real, Portugal
Interests: cell biology; biochemistry; cell-based assays; evaluation of bioactivities of natural compounds; phytochemicals; nutraceuticals
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Plants are sessile organisms that do not have the ability to move away from adverse environmental conditions. Thus, throughout evolution, plants have developed physical and chemical defense mechanisms against different adverse environmental factors. One of their most important strategies is the production of secondary metabolites, which are structurally diverse but with a common fundamental function: to exert, biological activity, giving the plant greater resistance and ensuring survival against adverse biotic (e.g., pests and pathogens) or abiotic (e.g., radiation, extreme temperatures, and drought) factors. Plants are, therefore, a huge source of bioactive compounds, most of which remain to be described and explored. Studying these compounds and their biological activities opens a window of opportunity regarding their potential application in several industries, such as the pharmaceutical, food, and cosmetics industries, as secondary metabolites may be used as active ingredients or as precursors for the synthesis of new drugs, with anticancer, antimicrobial, antiaging, antioxidant, hypoallergenic, and other properties. Additionally, in the agricultural sector, the constant demand for environmentally friendly insecticides and bioherbicides has led to the use of allelochemicals, among which alkaloids stand out for pest control and in the livestock sector, and plants rich in tannins are used against gastrointestinal nematodes. All these compounds present themselves as a potential source of research and development due to their low cost, low pollution, and ease of obtaining on a large scale in the current reality of the industrial scenario in the mentioned areas.
This Special Issue welcomes studies highlighting the evolution, diversity, identification, and function of secondary plant metabolites, as well as their application in agriculture and livestock, and in the pharmaceutical, agri-food, and cosmetics industries, as well as determining the influence of their use at an economic level.
Dr. Teresa Sosa Díaz
Dr. Amélia M. Silva
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. Plants 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
- natural bioactive ingredients
- phytochemicals
- extraction techniques
- antioxidants
- antimicrobials
- cosmetics
- pharmaceuticals
- phytopharmaceuticals
- food and feed additives
- sustainability
- allelochemicals
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