ABSTRACT
For many populations around the world, phytomedicines fi gure as the main form of treatment for a wide range of health problems, mostly being the fi rst line of defense against potential health hazards (Rahman 2012). Although access to the modern medicine is available in most countries, the use of medicinal herbs has retained its popularity due to historical and cultural reasons (Agra et al. 2008). Based on the historical evolution of the use of medicinal plants, in 1978 the World Health Organization (WHO) started to recognize medicinal herbs as an alternative therapy for human diseases. Additionally, the use of natural compounds from biological sources, as well as ethnobotanical knowledge, has emerged as an important source for discovering new products (Albuquerque and Hanazaki 2006, Li and Vederas 2009, Desmachelier 2010, Newman and Cragg 2012). Furthermore, in recent years, bioinformatic approaches, associated to the advanced techniques of separation, structure elucidation, screening and combinatorial synthesis have led to the consolidation of the usage of plants as a source of new drugs (Saklani and Kutty 2008, Sharma and Sarkar 2013).
