Metabolomics for Discovery of Novel Medicinal Compounds

Abstract

Plant tissues have complex chemical profiles consisting of both primary metabolites required for growth and development and secondary metabolites that enable the plant to sense and adapt to changing conditions. The products of plant secondary metabolism are a rich resource for discovery of new medicines but traditional methods of discovery such as bioassay-guided fractionation are expensive and time-consuming while some plant-based treatments rely on synergy between several compounds for full biological effect. Metabolomics is the study of the whole complement of small compounds in a biological sample and recently, this technique has been used to discover novel, medicinally active phytochemicals in traditional plant-based medicines. The overall objective of the Medicinal Plant Metabonomics research program is to assess the capacity for compound discovery by mass spectrometry and NMR-based metabolomics technologies and to quantitatively compare metabolites specific to individual medicinal plants. An extract of a single leaf of St. John's wort (Hypericum perforatum L) has been found to contain more 2,500 unique phytochemicals while extracts of species in the genus Scutellaria contain more than 4,200 individual compounds. A simple cup of coffee from a commercial retailer can contain between 8,000–10,000 distinct phytochemicals. Efforts to understand this phytochemical complexity and to develop models for study of chemodiversity form the foundation of future research in compound discovery, medicinal plant development and optimized diets.