A Multivariate Approach to Ethnopharmacology: Antidiabetic Plants of Eeyou Istchee.

Braydon Hall,Brian Foster,Alain Cuerrier,Hoda Eid,John T Arnason,Michel Rapinski,Pierre S Haddad,Ammar Saleem,Cory S Harris,Danielle Spoor

doi:10.3389/fphar.2021.511078

Abstract

An ethnopharmacological metanalysis was conducted with a large database available on antidiabetic activities of plant foods and medicines from the northern boreal forest, which are traditionally used by the indigenous Cree of James Bay, Quebec, Canada. The objective was to determine which bioassays are closely associated with the traditional knowledge of the Cree and which pharmacological metrics and phytochemical signals best define these plants and their groups. Data from 17 plant species, ethnobotanically ranked by syndromic importance value for treatment of 15 diabetic symptoms, was used along with 49 bioassay endpoints reported across numerous pharmacological studies and a metabolomics dataset. Standardized activities were separated into primary, secondary and safety categories and summed to produce a Pharmacological Importance Value (PIV) in each of the three categories for each species. To address the question of which pharmacological metrics and phytochemical signals best define the CEI anti-diabetes plants, multivariate analyses were undertaken to determine groupings of plant families and plant parts. The analysis identified Larix larcina as the highest PIV species in primary assays, Salix planifolia in secondary assays, and Kalmia angustifolia in safety assays, as well as a ranking of other less active species by PIV. Multivariate analysis showed that activity in safety PIV monitored mainly with cytochrome P450 inhibition patterns best reflected patterns of traditional medicine importance in Cree traditional knowledge, whereas potent primary bioactivities were seen in individual plants determined to be most important to the Cree for anti-diabetes purposes. In the secondary anti-diabetes assays, pharmacological variability was better described by plant biology, mostly in terms of the plant part used. Key signal in the metabolomics loadings plots for activity were phenolics especially quercetin derivatives. Traditional Indigenous knowledge in this analysis was shown to be able to guide the identification of plant pharmacological qualities in scientific terms.

Highlights

Due to a better understanding of the consequences of loss of indigenous culture through world development, a recent focus of the scientific community is the medicinal value of traditional knowledge (Schultes, 1994; Fabricant and Farnsworth, 2001)
This research began with a targeted ethnopharmacological approach and novel statistical methods to evaluate the Cree of Eeyou Istchee (CEI) ethnobotany with specific focus on traditional medicines used for treating major symptoms of Type 2 diabetes (T2D) (Leduc et al, 2006; Harbilas et al, 2009)
Upon evaluation of all pharmacological data (Figure 1A), principal component analysis (PCA) analysis revealed a large amount of variation inherent to this data set

Summary

Introduction

Due to a better understanding of the consequences of loss of indigenous culture through world development, a recent focus of the scientific community is the medicinal value of traditional knowledge (Schultes, 1994; Fabricant and Farnsworth, 2001). The primary intention of these statistical approaches was to determine similarity of patterns between plants or the people that use them. These methods have been explored in the context of consensus and significance of use but have never been extended to include plant bioactivity and pharmacology. Developing a unique combination of community and laboratory methods in the analysis of traditional knowledge data, the Team in Aboriginal Anti-diabetic Medicine (TAAM) was assembled in 2003 by Dr Pierre Haddad of the University of Montreal and funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to address the issue of rising rates of Type 2 diabetes (T2D) in Canadian First Nations communities. Through multi-institutional collaborative work, the TAAM investigated the ethnobotany, pharmacology, and phytochemistry of traditional Northern Cree medicinal plants in the context of T2D

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