Phylogenetic approach reveal plants with high medicinal potential

Discovering beneficial molecules in plants is a complex task requiring significant time and resources. To streamline this process, a strategic approach is essential for initially identifying plants with high potential. A promising strategy involves phylogenetics, as closely related plant species tend to share biochemistry. The aim is to propose a pipeline of phylogenetic methods to identify plants most likely to contain beneficial molecules. In this study, we extracted five monophyletic subtrees from a phylogenetic tree containing 32.223 species sourced from literature. Medicinal plant data, linked to disease, biological activity, or ethnobotanical use, were gathered from three databases. All the data for all the subtrees were subject to a series of phylogenetic methods. The results identified the "hot nodes", nodes related to the plants with most potential, and the subtree descending from these nodes were plotted. This study demonstrates the efficacy of phylogenetic methodologies in prioritizing plants for their medicinal potential.