Estimated number of metabolites expected to have some efficacy in human
| Range | 136,436 to 367,328 Metabolites |
|---|---|
| Organism | Plants |
| Reference | Mochamad Afendi et al., KNApSAcK Family Databases: Integrated metabolite-plant species databases for multifaceted plant researches. Plant Cell Physiol. 2011 Nov 28 p.15/28 top paragraphPubMed ID22123792 |
| Method | The red line in Fig. 8B represents the maximum ratio of the number of medicinal plants to the number of wild plants, which is 0.35, with an estimated average ratio of 0.13 (slope represented by black line). Therefore, assuming 223,300 plant species exist on Earth, the estimated number of medicinal plants ranges from 29,029 (223,300×0.13) to 78,155 (223,300×0.35), and the estimated number of metabolites expected to have some efficacy in human ranges from 136,436 (29,029×4.7) to 367,328 (78,155×4.7). |
| Comments | For 200,000 “specialized metabolites" (defined as those compounds that are present in some plant species and not in others, also known as secondary metabolites) in plants see Pichersky et al., 2011 PMID 21275647 p.550 right column bottom paragraph |
| Entered by | Uri M |
| ID | 107294 |