Preventing and Treating Liver Diseases: Medicinal and Food Plants, their metabolites as potential options

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Background

Liver diseases are seriously endangering human health in the world. In recent years, the incidence rate of liver disease is increasing year by year, and the age of patients tends to be younger. Therefore, it is urgent to find safe and effective drugs to treat liver diseases. The drugs used to treat liver diseases in clinic are mainly liver-protecting chemical drugs, some chemical synthetic drugs have serious problems, such as high toxicity, high recurrence rate, and high cost. However, medicinal and food plants have unique advantages in terms of safety and compliance, which have always been an important source for finding new hepatoprotective drugs. Importantly, new hepatoprotective natural products discovered from medicinal and food plants have the advantages of multi-pathways, multi-targets, and safety, which are focused on by medical researchers. Therefore, discovering safe and effective new hepatoprotective drugs from medicinal and food plants used anywhere in the world is a new research direction with important research value.

This research topic aims to address the following issues:

To discover hepatoprotective natural products from medicinal and food plants that can be used to treat liver diseases for people. This will involve the development of protocols and approaches using modern technologies, efficient systems, and novel materials to achieve hepatoprotective drug discovery from medicinal and food plants.

To find hepatoprotective targets for treating liver diseases from medicinal and food plants. This will involve the elucidation of therapeutic targets and strategies underlying their actions, through experimental investigations of their signaling pathways.

To elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying the effects of hepatoprotective natural products on the diverse forms of liver diseases. This will involve the exploration of the pharmacological mechanisms underlying their actions, through experimental investigations of their mechanisms.

The research topic aims to gather original research, review, systematic review, mini review, perspective, case report, abstract, and data report on the trend and recent advances in promising hepatoprotective natural products, pharmacological targets, and molecular mechanisms from medicinal and food plants for treating liver diseases. Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Discovery of new hepatoprotective natural products from medicinal and food plants

• Identification of new hepatoprotective targets from medicinal and food plants

• Elucidation of molecular mechanisms from medicinal and food plants

• Exploration of the role, efficacy, and safety of the potential hepatoprotective targets

• Novel methods for the discovery of hepatoprotective natural products

• Structure-activity relationships of hepatoprotective natural products

• Biosynthesis and metabolism of hepatoprotective natural products

• Pharmacological and toxicological studies on hepatoprotective natural products, including in vitro and in vivo bioactivity and metabolism studies, pharmacokinetic, and pharmacodynamics studies

Please note:

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 (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 characterised in detail (pillars 2 a and b ).

In particular, for network analysis studies, potential authors will have to comply with the following guidelines:

• In general, it is expected that network analysis will be conducted in combination with experimental pharmacological work or are based on a sound body of experimental work.
• Network analysis of mixtures (e.g., of extracts of a single botanical drug or a polyherbal preparation) is only considered if a specific experimental mechanism of action can be proposed for compounds with a relevant in vitro or in vivo activity
• Network analysis studies must critically assess the evidence to evaluate the potential pharmacological effects of a preparation/herbal (medical) product and the limitations of the evidence.
• The network must be represented in such a way that the underlying mechanism can be understood including a suitable visualization of the network and the individual data points.
• The identification of the compounds must be sound. This information may be derived preferably from benchwork or else from the existing literature. It is essential that the quantities of the compounds in the preparation or plant are stated and are high enough to be of pharmacological relevance.
• The bioavailability of the compounds must be assessed.
• Ubiquitous or very widely known compounds are highly unlikely to be “active”, especially in vitro assays. Therefore, in these cases, evidence for therapeutic or preventive benefits and mechanisms of action is essential.
• The major target found by transcriptomics or proteomics needs to be validated by other experimental techniques.

Keywords: Hepatoprotective, Bioactive Natural Products, Pharmacological Target, Molecular Mechanisms, liver disease

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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