Unravelling the phytochemical complexity of neuroprotective plants: a metabolomics approach to Alzheimer's disease.

Metabolomics is a comprehensive study of organisms at the metabolite level. The emergence of metabolomics as one of the 'omics' in systems biology perspectives has gained significance in relation to disease research. The use of metabolomics pipeline to unravel the potential of bioactive compounds in medicinal plants for benefiting mankind has become a powerful strategy for drug discovery. While traditional metabolite profiling has mainly classified medicinal plants according to broad biological activities, such as anti-inflammatory, anticancer, anti-diabetic and atherosclerosis effects, the non-targeted and targeted metabolomics offer a comprehensive approach for characterizing novel or previously unknown secondary metabolites providing a far more detailed approach. These advanced methodologies allow researchers to expand current research by providing deeper insight into how these compounds work and their underlying mechanisms at the molecular level. To investigate these metabolic shifts particularly in neurodegenerative diseases model, studies frequently use advanced analytical platform, such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to analyze metabolites in biofluids like blood, urine, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). This review will highlight recent metabolomics discoveries on unravelling the complex phytochemical composition of selected medicinal plants in producing neuroprotective bioactive compounds and therapeutic potential to combat neurodegenerative related disease especially Alzheimer's disease (AD).