About this Research Topic

Background

This Research Topic is part of a series: Quality control for Efficacy and Safety of Herbal Medicinal Products

The outbreak of COVID-19 has resulted in a global increase in the use of herbal medicines. As a result, ensuring the safety, quality, and effectiveness of these products has become a top priority for national health authorities, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and consumers. However, one of the challenges in ensuring the quality of herbal medicines is that different countries have different pharmacopoeial standards for herbal products. Since these standards can vary between different regions and countries, the quality and safety of the same herbal product may differ. The existing differences in quality control standards for herbal medicines highlight the pressing need for new technologies and methods to achieve unified management of the source, identification, and quality control of herbs. Therefore, it is important to develop standardized and reliable technologies for the identification and quality control of herbs. This will help to ensure that herbal products meet the quality standards that are required for safe and effective use.

The objective of this Research Topic is to investigate innovative technologies and methodologies for the quality control of herbal medicines, such as DNA barcoding or chloroplast genome, LC-MS, metabolomics, and more. These technologies aim to ensure the clinical safety, efficacy, and rational use of herbal medicines, and to minimize the recurrence of adverse side effects (ADRs) associated with their use. In addition, the topic also welcomes research on the development of new animal models, such as zebrafish models, to assess the safety of herbal medicines. Furthermore, we encourage studies focused on the isolation, purification, and interactions of active and toxic compounds that could serve as potential quality markers for herbal medicines. For instance, an experiment was conducted to extract and isolate berberine from Coptis chinensis and study its interaction with sulfonylurea drugs. In this experiment, it was hypothesized that berberine may reduce the metabolism of gliclazide, leading to an increased risk of mild hypoglycemia in patients after taking the medication.

We will invite scientists from around the globe to contribute to our research topic with original research and reviews related to the quality control of herbal medicines. We encourage investigations on diverse topics, including but not limited to:
• Molecular identification of herbal medicines. This topic explores the use of molecular methods, such as DNA barcoding and chloroplast genomes, to accurately identify herbal medicines.
• Isolation and identification of active and toxic compounds from herbal medicines and their analysis and quantification. By identifying these compounds, researchers can better understand the mechanisms of action of herbal medicines and assess their potential toxicity.
• New methods and techniques for quality control of herbal medicines. This includes using LC-MS and metabolomics, as well as HPTLC among other approaches.
• Impact of endogenous and exogenous toxic constituents in herbal medicines on products’ safety: This topic explores the limited standards and safety evaluation of endogenous and exogenous toxic constituents found in herbal medicines. By better understanding the risks associated with these constituents, researchers can develop guidelines for the safe use of herbal medicines.
• Herb-drug interactions and adverse reactions including the mechanisms. By analyzing these interactions, researchers can develop guidelines for the safe and effective use of herbal medicines in combination with conventional drugs.

All the manuscripts submitted to the collection will need to fully comply with the Four Pillars of Best Practice in Ethnopharmacology (you can freely download the full version here).
We also expect that the MS follow the standards established in the ConPhyMP statement Front. Pharmacol. 13:953205.

Keywords: Herbal medicines, quality control standard, safety evaluation, molecular identification, isolation and purification, endogenous and exogenous toxic constituents, limited standards, herb-drug interactions(HDIs)

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.

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