Cannabis sativa research trends, challenges, and new-age perspectives

Abstract

Cannabis sativa L. has been one of the oldest medicinal plants cultivated for 10,000 years for several agricultural and industrial applications. However, the plant became controversial owing to some psychoactive components that have adverse effects on human health. In this review, we analyzed the trends in cannabis research for the past two centuries. We discussed the historical transitions of cannabis from the category of herbal medicine to an illicit drug and back to a medicinal product post-legalization. In addition, we address the new-age application of immuno-suppressive and anti-inflammatory extracts for the treatment of COVID-19 inflammation. We further address the influence of the legal aspects of cannabis cultivation for medicinal, pharmaceutical, and biotechnological research. We reviewed the up-to-date cannabis genomic resources and advanced technologies for their potential application in genomic-based cannabis improvement. Overall, this review discusses the diverse aspects of cannabis research developments ranging from traditional use as herbal medicine to the latest potential in COVID-19, legal practices with updated patent status, and current state of art genetic and genomic tools reshaping cannabis biotechnology in modern age agriculture and pharmaceutical industry.

Keywords: Biological sciences; Plant Genetics; Plant biology; Plants.

Graphical abstract

Figure 1

Cananbis Research Trend (A) Timeline of Cannabis records. Timeline and years from the earliest to the latest cannabis records in the literature databases of life science and biomedical journals are depicted with color coded radial bar for EuropePMC (green), Scopus (blue), NCBI PMC (gray), and Web of Science (lilac). The publication year of the first available Cannabis related document in each database is marked by a verticle line at top of corresponding bar. The number of years from the oldest available article to the most recent publication in 2021 are indicated at the base of each bar. (B) Cannabis documents in the literature archives. The bar plot shows number of documents in the selected databases with Y axis divided into two sections to show the journals (upper section) and articles (lower section). (C) Common citations in databases. EuropePMC, Scopus and NCBI PMC records were compared using DOI identifiers and number of shared and unique documents between three sets are shown as venn plot. The size of circle corresponds to number of articles with DOI in each database. (D) Cannabis literature source in EuropePMC. Color coded pie chart depicts the source repositories of Cannabis articles in EuropePMC. The contribution (percentage of articles) from MEDLINE (MED), AGRICOLA (AGR), PubMed Central (PMC) and Chinese Biological Abstracts (CBA) are shown by orange, gray, turquoise, and cyan color. (E) Cannabis Research trends. The overall pattern of Cannabis research from 1783 to 2021 is depicted by the trend line (log scaled) with each dot representing the number of articles (Y axis) per year (X axis). The research periods categorized as zero (1783–1840), I (1840–1937), II (1937–1996) and III (1996–2021) are separated by vertical dotted lines. The three major achievements (I) discovery of cannabinoids, ii) cannabinoid receptors and iii) endocannabinoids that pushed the interest in Cannabis are marked in pink color. The number of articles in 2021 are still growing and therefore depicted as hollow enlarged dot. (F) Cannabis research subjects. Bubble plot depicts the most and least explored scientific subject areas with size corresponding to the number of articles (Y axis) and journals (Y axis) in each category. Major proportion of Cannabis research was related to medical and medicinal sciences followed by pharmacology and pharmaceuticals, neurosciences and psychology, biochemistry and biotechnology, genetics and genomic sciences, agriculture and plant biology, and bioinformatics.

Figure 2

Cannabis patent development (A) Number of patents registered for each category. Isolation, extraction and biosynthesis belong to the category of cannabinoid-related patents. Pharmaceutical-related patents were subcategorized into preparation, treatment, delivery technology and detection. CB receptor, TRPV1 and GPR119 were grouped into endocannabinoids. Three sub-groups, e.g., enzymes, genes and proteins are grouped for the category of sequences related patents. (B) Distribution of the patents into four major categories. (C) Region-wise division of the patents registered for each category. (All the information shown here are up to 2017)