Lamiaceae, formerly called Labiatae, is the largest family of the order Lamiales and also known as mint family. Around 230 genera and more than 7,000 species, distributed all over the world, were assigned to this family. Many species are cultivated, owing to their aromatic qualities and attractive flowers but the whole family is particularly important to humans for herb plants useful for flavor, fragrance, or medicinal properties. Consequently, members of the family have been used since ancient time for medicinal, perfumery, culinary and ornamental purposes.
The pronouncing chemical complexity described within the Lamiaceae is well known although only a minor part of the species-rich family is investigated. So far an enormous variety of compounds belonging to different chemical classes has been identified supporting the exceptional diversification gained during evolution and explain the ecological or economic relevance of plants within this family. Furthermore, these results suggest that multiple mechanisms such as multifunctional and rapidly evolving specialized metabolic enzymes contributed to the evolution of chemodiversity in Lamiaceae.
Despite the growing awareness of benefit of secondary/small molecules' in human and animal health but also in various industrial applications, e.g. nutraceutical, cosmetics, beverages etc., their structural diversity, biosynthesis, function in plant, and the underlying mechanisms remain largely underexplored. Discovering the high diversity on plant-derived biomolecules that mediate the manifold activities associated with the medicinal use of herbal Lamiaceae extracts, understanding their biosynthetic origin, control and regulation, the chemodiversity among tissues and across seasons, and the pharmacology would be critical to gain a most complete picture of how plants have evolved, and unlocking the full potential of plants within this family for divergent exploitation.
The overall goal of this Research Topic is to present current and novel knowledge in an interdisciplinary field on what, how and why chemodiversity within Lamiaceae has been gained, to elucidate its impacts on the interactions of plants with their biotic and abiotic environment and how to take advantage of this feature in science and application by integration of different disciplines.
This Research Topic aims to gather the latest advances in Lamiaceae research and will collect different types of manuscripts including reviews and original research papers by experts of this field. Therefore, any type of articles could be considered, covering the latest advances in the area of ethnobotanic, phytochemistry, metabolomics, biosynthesis, transcriptomics, chemical diversity, genetics, pharmacological activities and commercial importance including but not limited to:
- New analytical techniques or methods for identifying and quantifying phytochemcials in Lamiaceae and its products.
- Secondary/small metabolites as chemotaxonomic marker in Lamiaceae family
- New insights into the biosynthesis of family specific natural products, their genetic control, regulation and tissue specific accumulation
- Genetic control and regulation of biosynthesis of bioactive compounds
- Functional studies and mechanistic elucidation of secondary/small metabolites and extracts
- Elucidation of possible mechanisms of the evolution of chemodiversity in Lamiaceae
- Innovative post-harvest technologies or treatments preserving plant material prior industrial application and content of bioactive fractions
- The potential role of molecular studies and genetic improvements for greater accumulation of bioactive compounds