Biodiversity to Breakthroughs: The Promise of Saudi Arabian Medicinal Plants in Antiviral Research.

Abstract

Viruses are minuscule entities that cannot survive independently without a Living host. Pathogenic viruses pose a significant threat to global health, resulting annually in the deaths of thousands of people. Recent studies indicate that medicinal plants may serve as an effective source of sustainable natural antiviral agents. Saudi Arabia exhibits diverse climates, resulting in a variety of ecosystems and environmental setups with a diverse array of plant species. Diversified flora thriving in various climatic conditions produces a wide spectrum of phytochemical constituents, many of which possess antiviral and other pharmacological properties. Saudi Arabia, home to approximately 2285 distinct plant species, renders an advantageous situation for the development of novel chemopreventive and therapeutic agents for combating infectious diseases. This review seeks to secure information regarding the antiviral properties of medicinal plants and their constituent phytochemicals from Saudi Arabia. The review provides a Listing of the phytoconstituents responsible for antiviral effects, their mechanistic workings, and pathways associated with the activity. Data mined from PubMed, Scopus, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, EMBASE, and ChemSpider are included. The findings indicate that under 5% of these plant species have been investigated for their antiviral potential, thereby highlighting a significant gap in the information source. Investigating the antiviral potential of these unexplored plant species, in all probability, may result in the identification of novel compounds for the treatment of viral infections.