Discovery of bioactive drug candidates from some Turkish medicinal plants-neuroprotective potential of Iris pseudacorus L.

Medicinal plants have an enormous potential for producing bioactive compounds of great benefit to mankind. There is a great scope for new drug candidates based on traditional medicinal plants throughout the world. The number of drugs derived from medicinal plants that are recently introduced into clinical use is increasing. Besides, numerous of standardized herbal extracts were also approved as phytomedicines by the health authorities to be used in phytotherapy. The drug discovery program from nature in our laboratory involves several steps from plant collection, extraction, HTS of the extracts by using in vitro enzyme inhibitory tests, bioassay-guided fractionation through the isolation and structure elucidation of bioactive compounds. Continuing our researches in the field of anticholinesterase activity, neuroprotective potential of Iris pseudacorus L. have presented in this article.