Summary

Challenges in Standardization of Herbal Products: Genetic Polymorphism in Plants and Humans

Herbal products have been commonly used in Vietnam. However, the most prominent challenge in employing herbal drugs is involved in standardization since little is known in terms of their active principles. In addition, the quality of raw plant materials might vary drastically among different origins, probably due to their distinguished genetic make-ups. Therefore, being interested in the genetic profile of medicinal plants, we were performing assessment on genetic diversity of different species in the genera Panax, Acanthopanax, Phyllanthus, Illicium, Orthosiphon, Morinda. Generally, a high degree of polymorphism was observed for the genera Acanthopanax and Morinda, while a relative low degree of genetic differentiation was found for Panax and Orthosiphon. Whereas, in spite of the same genus, Phyllanthus amarus showed a high degree of homogeneity while P. urinaria exhibited a high degree of polymorphism. The different degree of genetic diversity in medicinal plant species reveals a challenge in standardization of herbal products.

In another direction, our research interest was also focused on polymorphic analyses of human gene families that we believe are important drug targets, such as G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) and other drug metabolizing enzymes. The different degree of diversity depending on individual SNP loci was also observed for some genes encoding for either drug-target receptors (e.g. OPRM1, HRH2) or drug metabolizing enzymes (e.g. NAT2) which were shown by their different allelic frequencies within a Vietnamese population. The genetic polymorphism of drug-target receptors and metabolizing enzymes reveals another challenge in standardization of herbal products.

In order to standardize herbal products, our endeavors are towards interpreting the herbal drugs’ modes of actions and screening for their potentially active principles via using receptor- and enzym-based bioassays aided by advancing DNA recombinant and protein expression technologies.

Key words: genetic polymorphism, medicinal plant, human receptor, herbal product

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