Phytochemical Databases and their Relevance to Phytotherapy

Abstract

Phytochemical databases are a rich source of information that supports phytotherapy research and the conservation of medicinally important plants. Collecting the knowledge of databases and their specific focus along with ways to use them efficiently will help the community. This chapter summarises the phytochemical databases available that support phytotherapy research and the conservation of medicinally important plants. Broadly, 56 databases that are classified into regionspecific, disease-specific, other common medicinal and phytochemical databases, and Himalayan-region-specific plant databases, have been summarised for ready reference in this book chapter. We also provide a typical workflow with examples to search the phytochemicals of selected Himalayan medicinal plants from existing Himalayan region-specific databases of Medicinal Plants. Finally, the need for urgently developing a comprehensive Himalayan-specific phytochemical database for phytotherapy is proposed.

Keywords: Disease-specific database, Medicinal plants Database, Phytochemical Database, Phytotherapy, Region-specific database.

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