Search

The

Background: Ethnopharmacological research aims at gathering information on local and traditional uses of plants and other natural substances. However, the approaches used and the methods employed vary, and while such a variability is desirable in terms of scientific diversity, research must adhere to well defined quality standards and reproducible methods. Objectives: With ConSEFS (the Consensus Statement on Ethnopharmacological Field Studies) we want to define best-practice in developing, conducting and reporting field studies focusing on local and traditional uses of medicinal and food plants, including studies using a historical approach. Methods: After first developing an initial draft the core group invited community-wide feedback from researchers both through a web-based consultation and a series of workshops at conferences during 2017. Outcomes:The consultation resulted in a large number of responses. Feedback was received via a weblink on the Journal of Ethnopharmacology´s website (ca. 100 responses), other oral and written responses (ca. 50) and discussions with stakeholders at four conferences. The main outcome is a checklist, covering best practice for designing, implementing and recording ethnopharmacological field studies and historical studies. Conclusions: Prior to starting ethnopharmacological field research, it is essential that the authors are fully aware of the best practice in the field. For the first time in the field of ethnopharmacology a community-wide document defines guidelines for best practice on how to conduct and report such studies. It will need to be updated and further developed. While the feedback has been based on responses by many experienced researchers, there is a need to test it in practice by using it both in implementing and reporting field studies (or historical studies), and peer-review. Fil: Heinrich, Michael. University of London; Reino Unido Fil: Lardos, Andreas. No especifíca; Fil: Leonti, Marco. Università Degli Studi Di Cagliari.; Italia Fil: Weckerle, Caroline. Universitat Zurich; Suiza Fil: Willcox, Merlin. University of Southampton; Reino Unido Fil: Applequist, Wendy. Missouri Botanical Garden; Estados Unidos Fil: Ladio, Ana Haydee. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universidad Bariloche. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente; Argentina Fil: Lin Long, Chun. Minzu University Of China; China Fil: Mukherjee, Pulok. Jadavpur University; India Fil: Stafford, Gary. Stellenbosch University; Sudáfrica

Southern Africa has three indigenous genera in the Amaryllidaceae subfamily Allioideae. Prototulbaghia is monospecific and Allium is represented by a single species, whereas Tulbaghia has > 20 described species. Tulbaghia spp. are popular in horticulture and used extensively as medicinal plants in southern Africa. Despite their popularity and economic importance, species delimitation is problematic and the infrageneric classification uncertain. The objective of this study was to test the monophyly of Tulbaghia and the relationships of Prototulbaghia and to produce the first molecular phylogenetic hypothesis for Tulbaghia as a basis for a revised infrageneric classification and species concepts. Fifty-four Tulbaghia samples covering 17 of the c. 23 accepted species were included in this study. In total, 160 new sequences of nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacers (ITS) and plastid encoded trnL-F and ndhF were produced for this study and were analysed using maximum parsimony and Bayesian inference. Tulbaghia including Prototulbaghia is strongly supported as monophyletic (BP = 100%, PP = 1.00) and in general clades that are well supported in either or both of the ITS and the combined plastid analysis are also well supported in the total combined analysis. Several major clades within Tulbaghia are resolved and ITS and plastid data indicated that Prototulbaghia and some Tulbaghia spp. are in need of taxonomic recircumscription.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Ethnopharmacological investigations of traditional medicines have made significant contributions to plant-derived drugs, as well as the advancement of pharmacology. Drug discovery from medicinal flora is more complex than generally acknowledged because plants are applied for different therapeutic indications within and across cultures. Therefore we propose the concept of “reverse ethnopharmacology” and compare biomedical uses of plant taxa with their ethnomedicinal and popular uses and test the effect of these on the probability of finding biomedical and specifically anticancer drugs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: For this analysis we use data on taxonomy and medical indications of plant derived biomedical drugs, clinical trial, and preclinical trial drug candidates published by Zhu et al. (2011) and compare their therapeutic indications with their ethnomedicinal and popular uses as reported in the NAPRALERT® database. Specifically, we test for increase or decrease of the probability of finding anticancer drugs based on ethnomedicinal and popular reports with Bayesian logistic regression analyses. RESULTS: Anticancer therapy resulted as the most frequent biomedicinal indication of the therapeutics derived from the 225 drug producing higher plant taxa and showed an association with ethnomedicinal and popular uses in women's medicine, which was also the most important popular use-category. Popular remedies for dysmenorrhoea, and uses as emmenagogues, abortifacients and contraceptives showed a positive effect on the probability of finding anticancer drugs. Another positive effect on the probability of discovering anticancer therapeutics was estimated for popular herbal drugs associated with the therapy of viral and bacterial infections, while the highest effect was found for popular remedies used to treat cancer symptoms. However, this latter effect seems to be influenced by the feedback loop and divulgence of biomedical knowledge on the popular level. CONCLUSION: We introduce the concept of reverse ethnopharmacology and show that it is possible to estimate the probability of finding biomedical drugs based on ethnomedicinal uses. The detected associations confirm the classical ethnopharmacological approach where a popular remedy for disease category X results in a biomedical drug for disease category X but does also point out the existence of cross-over relationships where popular remedies for disease category X result in biomedical therapeutics for disease category Y (Zhu et al., 2011). This paper is based on an oral presentation held at the 16th ISE Congress in Yulin, China (May 16-18th, 2016) and we would like to thank the organizers for the excellent congress and their hospitality. We are thankful also to Rich Spjut for the valuable comments on a draft version of this paper. GIS was a recipient of The Swiss Government Excellence Postdoctoral Scholarship awarded by the Federal Commission for Scholarships for Foreign Students (FCS). ML and CW acknowledge funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 606895. SC gratefully acknowledges funding from the RYC-2012-11455 and ECO2015-66593-P. MEC and SC acknowledge funding of the MINECO-Spain project (MTM2013-42323-P and MTM2016-77501-P).