Talinum triangulare (Jacq.) Willd: A review of its traditional uses, phytochemistry, and pharmacology along with network pharmacology analysis of its components and targets

Abstract

Talinum triangulare (water leaf) is an important herbaceous vegetable with medicinal importance. It has been used in traditional medicine for the management of diabetes, cancer, stroke, obesity, and measles. Popularly considered a weed, it is an unconventional food plant (UFP) with many nutritional and socio-economic potentials that needs to be rescued for invasive farming. The plant is a reservoir of various phytoconstituents belonging to flavonoids and lignans, alkaloids, and benzoic acid derivatives, which are known for their wide range of pharmacological effects. There is tremendous therapeutic potential in this cosmopolitan leafy vegetable plant, which has antidiabetic, antioxidative, hepatoprotective, and anticancer activity, along with a plethora of other pharmacological activities. This article reviews the traditional uses, phytochemistry, and pharmacology aspects of this underutilized food plant based on an extensive literature search which was available from 1976 to 2024 using a variety of electronic search engines. A network pharmacology-based approach was used for validation of the traditional claims as well as for exploring its therapeutic potential against diabetes for future research directions. This review intends to sensitize the scientific community to further research on this promising plant to bring it to commercial utilization as well as broaden the scope of this underutilized food plant.