Abstract Secondary metabolites play an important role in the adaptation of plants to the environment and in their recovering process to stress conditions. Among the different types of stress, the scarcity of water resources is considered a negative factor because it is responsible for productivity losses of several crops. However, plants grown under drought conditions generally produce higher concentrations of active substances that protect them against free radicals and reactive oxygen species and prevent damage to the photosynthetic process. In addition to plant protection, secondary metabolites, such as phenolic compounds, have great applicability in human health, acting as a healing, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and antitumor agent. The aim of this paper is to present a systematic review on the influence of water stress on the production of phenolic compounds in plants of medicinal interest. For this, a search was performed in three international databases (PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science) using keywords related to water stress and phenolic compounds. A total of 343 publications were obtained, which after the screening and eligibility process comprised 34 articles published between 1994 and 2019, showing that the widely accepted idea that there is a general increase in phenolic compounds in response to water scarcity is misguided. In opposition to this idea, this complex system differs for each plant species. In addition, due the large number of papers that have been conducted in greenhouses, further studies concerning tree species under different ecophysiological conditions are necessary.

中文翻译：

---

缺水胁迫对药用植物酚类化合物组成的影响

摘要 次生代谢产物在植物对环境的适应及其对胁迫条件的恢复过程中起着重要作用。在不同类型的压力中，水资源的稀缺被认为是一个负面因素，因为它是导致几种作物生产力下降的原因。然而，在干旱条件下生长的植物通常会产生更高浓度的活性物质，以保护它们免受自由基和活性氧的侵害，并防止对光合作用过程造成损害。除了植物保护外，酚类化合物等次生代谢产物在人体健康方面具有很大的适用性，可作为愈合剂、抗菌剂、抗炎剂和抗肿瘤剂。本文的目的是对水分胁迫对药用植物中酚类化合物产生的影响进行系统评价。为此，使用与水分压力和酚类化合物相关的关键字在三个国际数据库（PubMed、Scopus 和 Web of Science）中进行了搜索。总共获得了 343 篇出版物，经过筛选和资格审查后，其中包括 1994 年至 2019 年间发表的 34 篇文章，这表明普遍接受的认为酚类化合物普遍增加以应对水资源短缺的观点是错误的。与这个想法相反，这个复杂的系统因植物种类而异。此外，由于在温室中进行了大量论文，