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Contributions of the international plant science community to the fight against human infectious diseases - part 1: epidemic and pandemic diseases.

ABSTRACT: Infectious diseases, also known as transmissible or communicable diseases, are caused by pathogens or parasites that spread in communities by direct contact with infected individuals or contaminated materials, through droplets and aerosols, or via vectors such as insects. Such diseases cause ˜17% of all human deaths and their management and control places an immense burden on healthcare systems worldwide. Traditional approaches for the prevention and control of infectious diseases include vaccination programmes, hygiene measures and drugs that suppress the pathogen, treat the disease symptoms or attenuate aggressive reactions of the host immune system. The provision of vaccines and biologic drugs such as antibodies is hampered by the high cost and limited scalability of traditional manufacturing platforms based on microbial and animal cells, particularly in developing countries where infectious diseases are prevalent and poorly controlled. Molecular farming, which uses plants for protein expression, is a promising strategy to address the drawbacks of current manufacturing platforms. In this review article, we consider the potential of molecular farming to address healthcare demands for the most prevalent and important epidemic and pandemic diseases, focussing on recent outbreaks of high-mortality coronavirus infections and diseases that disproportionately affect the developing world.

SUBMITTER: Lobato Gomez M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8486245 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Contributions of the international plant science community to the fight against human infectious diseases - part 1: epidemic and pandemic diseases.

Lobato Gómez Maria M Huang Xin X Alvarez Derry D He Wenshu W Baysal Can C Zhu Changfu C Armario-Najera Victoria V Blanco Perera Amaya A Cerda Bennasser Pedro P Saba-Mayoral Andera A Sobrino-Mengual Guillermo G Vargheese Ashwin A Abranches Rita R Abreu Isabel Alexandra IA Balamurugan Shanmugaraj S Bock Ralph R Buyel Johannes F JF da Cunha Nicolau B NB Daniell Henry H Faller Roland R Folgado André A Gowtham Iyappan I Häkkinen Suvi T ST Kumar Shashi S Ramalingam Sathish Kumar SK Lacorte Cristiano C Lomonossoff George P GP Luís Ines M IM Ma Julian K-C JK McDonald Karen A KA Murad Andre A Nandi Somen S O'Keefe Barry B Oksman-Caldentey Kirsi-Marja KM Parthiban Subramanian S Paul Mathew J MJ Ponndorf Daniel D Rech Elibio E Rodrigues Julio C M JCM Ruf Stephanie S Schillberg Stefan S Schwestka Jennifer J Shah Priya S PS Singh Rahul R Stoger Eva E Twyman Richard M RM Varghese Inchakalody P IP Vianna Giovanni R GR Webster Gina G Wilbers Ruud H P RHP Capell Teresa T Christou Paul P

Plant biotechnology journal 20210719 10

Infectious diseases, also known as transmissible or communicable diseases, are caused by pathogens or parasites that spread in communities by direct contact with infected individuals or contaminated materials, through droplets and aerosols, or via vectors such as insects. Such diseases cause ˜17% of all human deaths and their management and control places an immense burden on healthcare systems worldwide. Traditional approaches for the prevention and control of infectious diseases include vaccin ...[more]

PMID: 34182608

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Project description:Infectious diseases represent, as a group, the main cause of mortality in the world. The most important reasons are multidrug-resistant pathogens, the rapid spread of emerging diseases aggravated by globalization, and the extended reach of tropical and vector-borne diseases resulting from continued climate change. Given the increase in these diseases and the limited effectiveness of antibiotics, traditional knowledge can constitute a useful tool to address these new health challenges. The aim of this work is to analyze extensively the available ethnobotanical data linked to infections and infestations in the Catalan linguistic area, with the intention of depicting the panorama of the folk use of herbal products to address the quoted ailments, preserving the popular plant knowledge and management data. The meta-analytic work performed in the present study covers 29 research studies belonging to different regions throughout the Catalan linguistic area. The medicinal ethnoflora to treat infections and infestations in the Catalan linguistic area includes 326 taxa belonging to 78 botanical families of vascular plants. The informant consensus factor (FIC) was 0.92, and the ethnobotanicity index (EI) was 7.26%. Artemisia absinthium (10.98%; 0.37) and Thymus vulgaris (8.06%; 0.27) are the most quoted taxa and have the highest values of the cultural importance index. The most reported use was antihelminthic (30.15%), followed by internal antiseptic (19.43%) and antipyretic (13.69%). The medicinal importance index shows the relevance of the antihelminthic use (14.23) and also the use against measles (10.19). The information is coincidental with at least one of the comprehensive pharmacological literature sources checked for 47.42% of ethnobotanical uses. These results, centered on the plants used to treat infection and infestation diseases, are the first step toward selecting some of the most interesting species to develop phytochemical and pharmacological studies and suggesting an alternative regarding how to face the health emergency involving the expansion of infectious diseases, based on local and traditional knowledge.

Dataset Information

Contributions of the international plant science community to the fight against human infectious diseases - part 1: epidemic and pandemic diseases.

Publications

Contributions of the international plant science community to the fight against human infectious diseases - part 1: epidemic and pandemic diseases.

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