A Review on Application of Bioinformatics in Medicinal Plant Research

Plants serve as a source of medicine from historic times and more commercially important drugs are of based on the origin of plants. The traditional approach in discovering plant-based drugs involves a significant amount of expenditure and time. In labor-intensive approach, more struggles were involved and hence there was a rapid development of high-throughput technologies. In the era of post genomics, generation of data was high-throughput and hence, bioinformatics plays a crucial role. In general, rational analysis is vital for drug designing and discovery. However, more attention is required to address the potential application of bioinformatics with respect to plant- based knowledge. In this chapter, a review bioinformatics studies were focused to identify the contribution in medicinal plants research. In particular, specific areas were highlighted in medicinal plant research where the potential application of methodologies in bioinformatics may result in a rapid and cost-effective lead generation towards finding remedies from plants