New trends from plant secondary metabolism in the pharmaceutical industry

Abstract

Plants constitute nowadays an important source for the discovery of new products of medicinal value for drug development, food additives, and cosmetic ingredients. High-value plant derivatives include phenolic compounds, terpenes and terpenoids, alkaloids, phytoalexins, among others, all of which biosynthesized as a defensive strategy by plants to respond to perturbations under certain environmental conditions. Although plants produce a number of therapeutical products, either already on the market or under clinical trial, the amounts obtained from natural sources are still very minute or difficult to synthesize at an industrial level because of the complex chemical composition and chirality exhibited by these compounds. Nonetheless, as natural bioactive-oriented researches intensify-from large-scale epidemiological and interventional studies to innovative biotechnological tools pursuing compound refinement and production at the industrial level-, one may expect the upcoming years to be determinant for plant secondary metabolites to achieve their highest value in the most diverse technological and pharmacological domains. In this chapter, we discuss various aspects of plant secondary metabolites, including their biosynthetic pathways, health-promoting properties, and sources of medical products for commercial and pharmaceutical applications.