Properties and medical applications of the Euphorbiaceae family and their bioproducts: a patent review.

Abstract

Euphorbiaceae is a family of dicotyledonous angiosperm plants that occur mainly in the tropics and produce a variety of secondary metabolites. Given the abundance of the Euphorbiaceae species and the diversity of substances they produce, this study aims to investigate paten documents concerning inventions and models involving the pharmacological use of these species, contributing to the study of their medicinal potential. The present review delves into patent documents in the Patentscope database, from the application of search criteria, such as "simple search" with the "Euphorbiaceae" keyword, limited to the front page, with stemming, without language limitation, from any patent office, and excluding non-patent literature (NPL). The selected patents were prevalently published in East Asian offices between 1998 and 2023, including 41 species of Euphorbiaceae of 19 genera, with 31 metabolites represented. The collected metabolites predominantly exhibited anti-tumoral (N = 21), anti-inflammatory (N = 10), antioxidant (N = 7), and anti-bacterial (N = 6) activities. Additionally, some substances have shown valid properties for treating non-communicable diseases (N = 8). The patents demonstrate the biotechnological potential of species from the Euphorbiaceae family, which are exceptionally satile regarding their applications in the health sector. However, the small number of patents that identify specific metabolites hinders a more thorough investigation of the activities of the products extracted from these species.