Abstract
Plants have been used traditionally against numerous ailments since prehistoric times. However, proper scientific validation is required to provide a rationale for traditional medicinal claims. Traditional knowledge of medicinal plants provides the clues for target-specific research by implementing modern botanical, phytochemical, analytical, biological, and biotechnological tools, which can ultimately direct the discovery of lead molecules. Secondary metabolites present in medicinal plants are responsible for the therapeutic potential of plants. Plant-based metabolite's structural complexity and molecular diversity make them potential drug-like candidates. Implementing modern phytochemical studies provides scientific evidence for validating the medicinal properties of plants by correlating pharmacological activities of plants and their phytoconstituents. These metabolites having vast and versatile pharmacological effects can also be utilized in the herbal, food, cosmetics, and chemical industries. This chapter covers most of the fundamental aspects of scientifically validating traditional medicinal plant knowledge. Initially, metabolism, biosynthesis, and successful drugs derived from plants have been discussed. In the later part, steps involved in the phytochemical investigation of plants starting from approaches used for selecting plants followed by extraction, fractionation, and isolation techniques have been discussed. Finally, spectroscopic, bioactivity, and quality evaluation techniques are discussed.
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