Plants Used as Medicines and Foods (PUMS): Pharmacodynamic Basis and Molecular Mechanisms

Plants Used in Medicines and Foods (PUMS) represent a unique category of natural resources with a long history of simultaneous dietary and therapeutic application. Driven by the global interest in preventive healthcare, personalized nutrition, and integrative approaches to wellness, increased attention across pharmacology, food science, and biomedicine has focused on PUMS. Their multi-component nature may offer opportunities for studying combinatorial and multi-target effects, though this same complexity poses substantial challenges for mechanistic characterization, standardization, and clinical translation. These features make them relevant to research on chronic disease intervention, immune modulation, and health maintenance — areas where conventional single-target pharmaceutical approaches have shown limitations.Despite extensive reports of pharmacological activity for classical PUMS materials — including tonifying herbs, edible fungi, and functional fruits and vegetables — much of the existing literature remains at the general observational and pharmacological studies. Two persistent bottlenecks limit deeper mechanistic understanding and clinical translation: the bioactive metabolites are often poorly known, and the molecular mechanisms of action remain incompletely characterized. The chemical complexity of natural products, potential synergistic and antagonistic interactions among constituents, and multi-pathway regulation in vivo continue to obscure the scientific basis of reported PUMS effects — hindering standardization, industrial development, and broader international recognition of these resources.Modern approaches including metabolomics, in vitro/in vivo functional assays, and single-cell sequencing now offer useful tools to address these challenges. Network approaches (when applied to well-characterized, single-stage metabolites) and molecular docking offer useful early-stage opportunities to generate testable hypotheses, but require experimental validation to yield scientifically meaningful conclusions. This Research Topic brings together cutting-edge findings to systematically identify the potentially active components of PUMS resources, characterize their target interactions, investigate their regulatory mechanisms across physiological and pathological pathways, and contribute to a rigorous scientific framework for evaluating the pharmacological effects and efficacy of PUMS. Ultimately, this collection aims to support the modernization, standardized development, and rational clinical application of PUMS resources, and to advance the integration of traditional food-medicine knowledge with contemporary pharmacology. Here we use the concept of ‘Plants Used in Medicines and Foods’ to highlight the interface of food and medicine. In some sources this has been called ‘homology’ or ‘medicine-food homologous substances’, but this is scientifically unclear since the term homologous refers to an organ or other biological structure which is similar in position, structure, and evolutionary origin but not necessarily in function.We welcome original research articles, reviews, brief communications, and perspectives addressing the pharmacodynamic basis and mechanisms of PUMS resources. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:Screening and identification of potentially active extracts and metabolites: Isolation, purification, structural elucidation, and quantitative analysis of bioactive metabolites from classical PUMS materials; discovery of novel potentially active components and characteristic efficacy markers.Chemically active metabolites in PUMS formulations: Compatibility analysis of classical food-medicine multi-herb preparations; potential synergistic, antagonistic, and complementary effects of multi-metabolite combinations; overall chemical profile underlying a preparation’s effects or efficacy.Molecular mechanisms of pharmacological action: In vitro and in vivo studies on the effects of PUMS bioactive metabolites on metabolic pathways, immune signaling, inflammatory responses, oxidative stress, cell proliferation and apoptosis, and gut microbiota; target binding, gene expression regulation, and signal transduction mechanisms.Multi-omics approaches: Application of metabolomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and integrated multi-omics analyses to map the efficacy-relevant regulatory networks of PUMS resources; network pharmacology prediction and molecular docking may be included only when paired with experimental validation of predicted targets or pathways.Pharmacokinetics and bioavailability of PUMS bioactive metabolites: Absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and bioavailability of PUMS bioactive metabolites in vivo; structure-activity relationships; strategies for metabolite modification and efficacy optimization.PUMS resources in disease prevention and intervention: Preclinical studies on the effects of PUMS metabolites and preparations in chronic metabolic diseases, immune dysregulation, inflammatory conditions, and sub-health states; preventive pharmacology and health-relevant mechanisms.Novel technologies for assessing the efficacy and pharmacological effects of PUMS: Development and application of high-throughput screening platforms, AI-assisted prediction models (with experimental validation), and systematic validation frameworks for characterizing PUMS pharmacodynamic substances and mechanisms.Please note:Contributions involving plant- or fungus-derived PUMS materials should include detailed descriptions of biological source, extraction methods, and processing procedures. Authors are encouraged to consult the Four Pillars of Best Practice in Ethnopharmacology and the ConPhyMP statement (Front. Pharmacol., 13:953205) where applicable. The full best-practice guidance is available at: https://ga-online.org/best-practice. Authors are also encouraged to self-assess their manuscripts using the ConPhyMP tool before submission.Studies involving animal experiments must comply with relevant institutional and national ethical guidelines and report adherence to the 3Rs principles (Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement). Studies involving human subjects must include a statement of institutional ethics committee approval.The following types of submissions fall outside the scope of this Research Topic:Purely in silico studies (e.g., network pharmacology, molecular docking, virtual screening) without any experimental validationStudies reporting only chemical antioxidant assays (e.g., DPPH, ABTS) without mechanistic follow-up relevant to the pharmacological activity of PUMS resourcesBibliometric or scientometric analyses Topic editors: Rongrui Wei, Ifeoma Felicia Chukwuma, Nanyang Xiao Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/81869/plants-used-as-medicines-and-foods-pums-pharmacodynamic-basis-and-molecular-mechanisms