title: Reverse ethnopharmacology and drug discovery.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Ethnopharmacological investigations of traditional medicines have made significant contributions to plant-derived drugs, as well as the advancement of pharmacology. Drug discovery from medicinal flora is more complex than generally acknowledged because plants are applied for different therapeutic indications within and across cultures. Therefore we propose the concept of "reverse ethnopharmacology" and compare biomedical uses of plant taxa with their ethnomedicinal and popular uses and test the effect of these on the probability of finding biomedical and specifically anticancer drugs.
  
  
  METHODS
  For this analysis we use data on taxonomy and medical indications of plant derived biomedical drugs, clinical trial, and preclinical trial drug candidates published by Zhu et al. (2011) and compare their therapeutic indications with their ethnomedicinal and popular uses as reported in the NAPRALERT®database. Specifically, we test for increase or decrease of the probability of finding anticancer drugs based on ethnomedicinal and popular reports with Bayesian logistic regression analyses.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Anticancer therapy resulted as the most frequent biomedicinal indication of the therapeutics derived from the 225 drug producing higher plant taxa and showed an association with ethnomedicinal and popular uses in women's medicine, which was also the most important popular use-category. Popular remedies for dysmenorrhoea, and uses as emmenagogues, abortifacients and contraceptives showed a positive effect on the probability of finding anticancer drugs. Another positive effect on the probability of discovering anticancer therapeutics was estimated for popular herbal drugs associated with the therapy of viral and bacterial infections, while the highest effect was found for popular remedies used to treat cancer symptoms. However, this latter effect seems to be influenced by the feedback loop and divulgence of biomedical knowledge on the popular level.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We introduce the concept of reverse ethnopharmacology and show that it is possible to estimate the probability of finding biomedical drugs based on ethnomedicinal uses. The detected associations confirm the classical ethnopharmacological approach where a popular remedy for disease category X results in a biomedical drug for disease category X but does also point out the existence of cross-over relationships where popular remedies for disease category X result in biomedical therapeutics for disease category Y (Zhu et al., 2011).
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Cagliari, 09124, Cagliari, Italy. Electronic address: marcoleonti@netscape.net.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Leonti
authors.affiliation: Institute of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, University of Zürich, 8008, Zürich, Switzerland; Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University, 7601, Stellenbosch, South Africa.
authors.forename: Gary I
authors.initials: GI
authors.lastname: Stafford
authors.affiliation: Institute of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, University of Zürich, 8008, Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Maja Dal
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Cero
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics and Informatics, University of Cagliari, 09124, Cagliari, Italy; Department of Statistics, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 28908 Getafe (Madrid, Spain).
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cabras
authors.affiliation: Department of Informatics and Statistics Rey Juan Carlos University, 28938, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Maria Eugenia
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Castellanos
authors.affiliation: Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Cagliari, 09124, Cagliari, Italy.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Casu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, University of Zürich, 8008, Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Caroline S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Weckerle
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000972:Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000494:pharmacology*; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D016208:Databases, Factual; D055808:Drug Discovery / Q000379:methods*; D020834:Ethnopharmacology / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008519:Medicine, Traditional / Q000379:methods; D008517:Phytotherapy / Q000379:methods; D028321:Plant Preparations / Q000627:therapeutic use; D010946:Plants, Medicinal / Q000737:chemistry / Q000145:classification
chemical_list: D000972:Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic; D028321:Plant Preparations
keywords: Anticancer; Biodiversity; Bioprospecting; Drug discovery; Traditional medicine; Women's medicine