Muliasari, Handa, Yeshi, Karma, Oelgemöller, Michael, Loukas, Alex, Crayn, Darren, and Wangchuk, Phurpa (2025) Australian tropical medicinal plants and their phytochemicals with wound healing and antidiabetic properties. Phytochemistry reviews. (In Press)

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Abstract

Diabetes remains a global health challenge, with increasing numbers of patients diagnosed annually. Managing diabetes, particularly type two diabetes (T2D), requires a healthy lifestyle and medication to prevent further complications. New and effective antidiabetic drugs derived from natural products, including medicinal plants, are urgently needed because of the undesirable side effects associated with current antidiabetic drugs. Australian Aboriginal people possess rich traditional knowledge of plants used for food and therapeutic purposes. Here, we reviewed the literature on Aboriginal medicinal plants and found that a total of 126 Australian tropical plant species belonging to 47 families and 88 genera were reported as being used for treating wounds and diabetes-related conditions. We found that 28 of these 126 species were edible, of which fruits were the most consumed part. Among the 126 species, crude extracts from 29 species have been tested for their antidiabetic properties, and crude extracts of Syzygium cumini and Morinda citrifolia were the most extensively studied. Crude extracts from some species (e.g., Morinda citrifolia, Eleocharis dulcis, and Brassica rapa) have also been clinically evaluated in diabetic patients. Additionally, among 29 species, 374 pure compounds were isolated from 26 species. From the 374 isolated compounds, 51 have already been tested, out of which 16 were identified as antidiabetic drug leads. A total of 73 Aboriginal medicinal plants have not been tested for their phytochemical content or antidiabetic activity. These plants not only present potential targets for the biodiscovery of novel antidiabetic drug leads but also for the development of antidiabetic nutraceuticals based on traditional bush food knowledge.

Item ID:	85676
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1572-980X
Keywords:	Aboriginal people; Antidiabetic activity; Diabetes; Medicinal plants; Phytochemicals; Wound healing
Copyright Information:	© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Funders:	Lembaga Pengelola Dana Pendidikan (LPDP), National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Far North Queensland Hospital Foundation (FNQHF)
Projects and Grants:	LPDP Endowment Fund for Education Agency, NHMRC Ideas grant (APP2029349), FNQHF Research grant
Date Deposited:	02 Jun 2025 22:23
FoR Codes:	34 CHEMICAL SCIENCES > 3405 Organic chemistry > 340502 Natural products and bioactive compounds @ 75% 34 CHEMICAL SCIENCES > 3404 Medicinal and biomolecular chemistry > 340401 Biologically active molecules @ 25%
SEO Codes:	28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280105 Expanding knowledge in the chemical sciences @ 100%
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