Therapeutic Potential of Medicinal Plant Proteins: Present Status and Future Perspectives.

Biologically active molecules obtained from plant sources, mostly including secondary metabolites, have been considered to be of immense value with respect to treatment of various human diseases. However, some inevitable limitations associated with these secondary metabolites like high cytotoxicity, low bio-availability, poor absorption, low abundance, improper metabolism etc. , have forced the scientific community to explore medicinal plants for alternate biologically active molecules. In this context, therapeutically active proteins/peptides from medicinal plants have been promoted as a promising therapeutic intervention for various human diseases. A large number of proteins isolated from the medicinal plants have been shown to exhibit anti-microbial, anti-oxidant, anti-HIV, anti-cancerous, ribosome inactivating and neuro-modulatory activities. Moreover, with advanced technological developments in the medicinal plant research, medicinal plant proteins such as Bowman-Birk protease inhibitor and Mistletoe Lectin-I are presently under clinical trials against prostrate cancer, oral carcinomas and malignant melanoma. Despite these developments and proteins being potential drug candidates, to date not a single systematic review article has documented the therapeutical potential of the available biologically active medicinal plant proteome. The present artice was therefore designed to describe the current status of the therapeutically active medicinal plant proteins/peptides vis-à-vis their potential as future protein-based drugs for various human diseases. Future insights in this direction have also been highlighted.