The genus Paris: a fascinating resource for medicinal and botanical studies

Abstract

The genus Paris, comprising a series of distinctive medicinal plants, has been utilized globally for its therapeutic properties over centuries. Modern pharmacological studies have demonstrated that secondary metabolites from Paris species exhibit significant pharmacological activities, including anticancer, hemostatic, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and other effects. Additionally, the unique morphological traits and large genome size of Paris species have continuously captured the interest of botanists and horticulturalists. Nonetheless, the conservation of wild Paris populations is threatened due to the lengthy reproductive cycle and overexploitation, posing considerable challenges to their development and sustainable use. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the botanical characteristics, historical medicinal uses, pharmacological effects, and toxicity evaluation of secondary metabolites in Paris species. It also covers the molecular biological research conducted on the genus Paris and proposes key research questions and important directions for future solutions. We advocate the expansion and implementation of multi-omics approaches, as well as molecular and genetic technologies recently advanced in model plant research, to intensively study Paris species. This will facilitate the comprehensive understanding of gene function and molecular mechanisms underlying specialized metabolite formation in Paris.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Wenji Zhao, Jingxian Zeng, Xiang Li, Mingxu Zhao, Xianhong Feng, Rui Dong, and Nadezhda Naida for their help in providing photographs and image processing. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82222072, U1902214, 32300318, 32400068 and 82404605), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2022M720546, 2022MD723713, 2024M750284, 2024M760309 and GZC20230332), the China National Postdoctoral Program For Innovative Talents (BX20220048), the Natural Science Foundation of Sichuan Province (2024NSFSC1324, 2022NSFSC1362, 24NSFSC4937, and 2022JDJQ0055), the Sichuan Province Innovative Talent Funding Project for Postdoctoral Fellows (BX202318), and the Xinglin Talent Program of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (BSH2023030).

Author contributions

S.L., Y.L., and Y.T. designed and coordinated the review; X.Y. and Y.T. structured, drafted, and revised the manuscript. X.P., H.H., J.C., C.T., and X.T. contributed to figure preparation and critical revision of the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Supplementary Data

Supplementary data are available at Horticulture Research online.

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