Work

Clitoria ternatea as a phytopharmacological resource: plant metabolites, mechanistic evidence, translational prospects, and safety considerations

Year: 2026

Type: review

Abstract: Clitoria ternatea L. (Fabaceae; butterfly pea) is used in traditional medicine and is increasingly developed as a food colorant, functional beverage, botanical preparation, and source of peptide scaffolds. Previous reviews have separately emphasized ethnomedicine, flower extraction, anthocyanins, or cyclotides; however, the evidence has rarely been integrated according to preparation identity, study design, bioavailability, safety, and translational readiness. This structured critical narrative review updates the literature through 8 August 2026. PubMed, Scopus, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar were searched using species-name and domain-specific terms. Primary studies were prioritized, and evidence was stratified as chemical/analytical, in silico , isolated-target or cell-based, animal, and human. Study interpretation considered taxonomic authentication, plant part, extraction and chemical characterization, dose, controls, duration, model relevance, adverse-event reporting, and exposure plausibility. The principal metabolite classes are ternatin anthocyanins, flavonol glycosides, phenolic acids, triterpenoids, sterols, and cyclotides. Chemical assays such as DPPH and ABTS support redox characterization but do not establish pharmacological or therapeutic efficacy. Neurobehavioral, anti-inflammatory, metabolic, antimicrobial, organ-protective, and cytotoxic signals are reported mainly in preclinical models, often using incompletely standardized extracts. Human evidence is restricted to small acute crossover studies and exploratory adjunctive studies, including a 2026 study of flower tea in people with type 2 diabetes and diabetic distress. Intact ternatins are orally absorbed in rats, but systemic exposure is modest and human pharmacokinetic data are unavailable; metabolite exposure, formulation effects, chronic toxicity, reproductive safety, cyclotide immunogenicity, and botanical-drug interactions remain insufficiently defined. Recent genomic and peptide studies strengthen the biotechnology relevance of cyclotides and butelase-1 but should not be conflated with the efficacy of crude botanical preparations. Overall, C. ternatea is a promising source of defined food, botanical, and peptide products, but therapeutic claims require authenticated materials, marker-based standardization, exposure-linked pharmacology, and adequately controlled clinical trials.

Source: Frontiers in Pharmacology

DOI: 10.3389/fphar.2026.1922024