Given the success of Research Topic
The Nutritional Immunological Effects and Mechanisms of Chemical Constituents from the Homology of Medicine and Food, we are pleased to announce the launch of Volume II.
Homology of medicine and food materials play important roles in health protection and disease prevention. Phytochemical studies have revealed the categories and structures of the food-sourced pharmacologically-active metabolites, including polysaccharides, flavones, anthraquinones, phenylpropanoids, alkaloids, and saponins. These metabolites have been used to improve immunity, protect the liver, modulate the gut microbiota, treat inflammations, protect the heart and brain, and manage cancer-related symptoms. Thus, studying the pharmacological effects of extracts and metabolites of the medicine-food homology is of great importance in the context of one-health including developing products for the pharmaceutical and functional food industry, as well as animal health.
Plants and fungi derived from the medicine-food homology and their metabolites have shown nutritional immunological activities on immune cells and organs. They not only stimulate or depress the effects of several immune cells like RAW 264.7, dendritic cells, and lymphocyte, but also modulate intestinal and lung barrier function, as well as mucosal immune of the respiratory and digestive tract, gut microbiota, inflammatory responses, and tumor immune. These effects are adjusted and controlled through various pathways, such as NF-?B/MAPK and PI3K/AKT/mTOR. However, our understanding of these mechanisms remains limited.
This Research Topic focuses on studies investigating the nutritional immunological effects of extracts and metabolites based on the medicine-food homology by using in vitro and in vivo pharmacological methods including their mechanisms action.
Specific topics include, but are not limited to:
• The chemical characterization of the extract and metabolites based on the medicine-food homology and their nutritional immunological effects and the mechanisms;
• Network analyses and multi-omics studies on the nutritional immunological effects and the mechanisms of the homology of medicine and food constituents, if these integrate of in silico and experimental pharmacological approaches;
• Gut-lung axis, gut-liver axis, gut-brain axis, gut-kidney axis, and nutritional immunology studies based on the medicine-food homology;
• Nutritional immunological responses involving the medicine-food homology of extracts and metabolites to environmental risk factors;
• New models to investigate the nutritional immunological effects.
Please note the following specifically for manuscripts submitted to Frontiers in Pharmacology:
1) All studies must use a therapeutically realistic dose level, and the data must be reported on the basis of the amount of extract administered. Single-dose studies are not accepted unless they focus on a species/compound not yet studied in detail and can be justified on specific ethical grounds (e.g. the 4R rule - Reduce, refine, replace, responsibility, see the Four Pillars).
2) A detailed chemical profile of the extract and pharmacognostic definition of the botanical drugs used is essential, as defined in the ConPhyMP statement 2022 (see below).
3 ) In silico studies like network analysis or docking studies are outside of the scope of the section and of Frontiers in Pharmacology.
4) All the manuscripts submitted to this project will be peer-reviewed and need to fully comply with the Four Pillars of Best Practice in Ethnopharmacology Four Pillars of Best Practice in Ethnopharmacology (you can freely download the full version
here). Importantly, please ascertain that the ethnopharmacological context is clearly described (pillar 3d) and that the material investigated is characterized in detail (
pillars 2 a and b).
