Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic joint disease that causes pathological changes in articular cartilage, synovial membrane, or subchondral bone. Conventional treatments for OA include surgical and non-surgical methods. Surgical treatment is suitable for patients in the terminal stage of OA. It is often the last choice because of the associated risks and high cost. Medication of OA mainly includes non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, analgesics, hyaluronic acid, and cortico-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs. However, these drugs often have severe side effects and cannot meet the needs of patients. Therefore, safe and clinically appropriate long-term treatments for OA are urgently needed. Apoptosis is programmed cell death, which is a kind of physiologic cell suicide determined by heredity and conserved by evolution. Inhibition of apoptosis-related pathways has been found to prevent and treat a variety of diseases. Excessive apoptosis can destroy cartilage homeostasis and aggravate the pathological process of OA. Therefore, inhibition of apoptosis-related factors or signaling pathways has become an effective means to treat OA. Phytochemicals are active ingredients from plants, and it has been found that phytochemicals can play an important role in the prevention and treatment of OA by inhibiting apoptosis. We summarize preclinical and clinical studies of phytochemicals for the treatment of OA by inhibiting apoptosis. The results show that phytochemicals can treat OA by targeting apoptosis-related pathways. On the basis of improving some phytochemicals with low bioavailability, poor water solubility, and high toxicity by nanotechnology-based drug delivery systems, and at the same time undergoing strict clinical and pharmacological tests, phytochemicals can be used as a potential therapeutic drug for OA and may be applied in clinical settings.

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Climate change poses a very serious threat to woody plants, and it is important to study its impact on the distribution dynamics of woody plants in China. However, there are no comprehensive quantitative studies on which factors influence the changes in the area of woody plant habitats in China under climate change. In this meta-analysis, we investigated the future suitable habitat area changes of 114 woody plant species in 85 studies based on MaxEnt model predictions to summarize the future climate change impacts on woody plant habitat area changes in China. It was found that climate change will result in a 3.66% increase in the overall woody plant suitable areas and a 31.33% decrease in the highly suitable areas in China. The mean temperature of the coldest quarter is the most important climatic factor, and greenhouse gas concentrations were inversely related to the area of future woody plant suitable areas. Meanwhile, shrubs are more climate-responsive than trees, drought-tolerant plants (e.g., Dalbergia , Cupressus , and Xanthoceras ) and plants that can adapt quickly (e.g., Camellia, Cassia , and Fokienia ) and their appearance will increase in the future. Old World temperate, Trop. Asia and Trop. Amer. disjuncted, and the Sino-Himalaya Floristic region are more vulnerable. Quantitative analysis of the possible risks to future climate change in areas suitable for woody plants in China is important for global woody plant diversity conservation.

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Sequences of different spike proteins of COVID-19 are collected and classified by constructing a sequence similarity graph and applying clustering algorithms. Binding affinity of small molecules to those spike proteins is searched by assessing the similarity between spike proteins and different human protein sequences. Selected binding molecules are then compared with natural products mainly plant secondary metabolites based on Tanimoto similarity measure. A tripartite graph is created among spike proteins, binding molecules, and secondary metabolites and a scoring scheme is proposed to measure the strength of a tripartite relation in such a graph. Based on this tripartite graph and scoring scheme, some natural compounds are selected which are likely to be effective against COVID-19. The medicinal and biological activities of the selected compounds are discussed depicting their likelihood to be covid drugs based on scientific literatures.

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This index lists all 3367 normalized pharmacological activity terms appeared in the encyclopedia in alphabetical order and a number code sequence of the related compounds follows the bold term immediately.

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