SMDB: Investigating Secondary Metabolites in Common Spices through Bioactive Metabolite Profiling

Secondary metabolites (SMs) are low molecular weight molecules produced by plants to cope with biotic and abiotic stresses. Spices are rich sources of such metabolites, which have made them integral to culinary and medicinal preparations throughout human history. These metabolites enhance aroma, colour, taste, and palatability in food. Additionally, spice-derived SMs have significant potential as sources for novel drugs. While spices are recognized for their diverse therapeutic properties, a standardized and curated repository of their chemical constituents has been lacking. To bridge this gap, we introduced the Spices Metabolites Database (SMDB), as a component of our Food Drugs & Pharmacology platform ( https://fooddrugs.in/ ). This database includes 4084 metabolites from 40 widely consumed spices. Duplicates were subsequently removed, and only unique entries were further processed. The unique metabolites were screened computationally to predict their pharmacokinetic profiles. The metabolites compliant to Lipinski’s rule were surveyed through literature for their reported biological and pharmacological properties. Among surveyed pharmacological activity categories, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-cancerous activities dominate, reflecting both the chemical richness of spices and their longstanding therapeutic roles in traditional medicine. SMDB is a freely accessible database having potential and primary resource that provides physicochemical and pharmacological annotations for SMs to support nutritional and phytochemical research. As a dynamic resource, the database will be updated regularly to maintain its relevance.