Cannabis is one of the earliest cultivated plants, of which Cannabis sativa and Cannabis indica are the most widespread and best characterized species. Their extracts contain (phyto)cannabinoids (pCBs) of therapeutic interest, such as Δ⁹-tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol, along with many other compounds, so that there is no “one cannabis” but several mixtures even from the same plant. This complexity is mirrored, or even exceeded, by the complexity of the molecular targets that pCBs find in our body, most of which belong to the so-called “endocannabinoid (eCB) system”. Here, we describe the major pCBs and the main components of the eCB system to appreciate their differences and mutual interactions, as well as the potential of using pCB/eCB-based drugs as novel therapeutics to treat human diseases, both in the central nervous system and at the periphery. Moreover, we address the question of the evolution of pCBs and eCBs, showing that the latter compounds were the first to appear in nature, and that the former substances took a few million years to mimic the three-dimensional structures of the latter, and hence their biological activity in our body.

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中文翻译：

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植物大麻素和内源性大麻素：性质不同

大麻是最早的栽培植物之一，其中的大麻和印度大麻是分布最广，特征最丰富的物种。它们的提取物含有治疗意义的（植物）大麻素（PCBS），例如Δ ⁹-四氢大麻酚和大麻二酚，以及许多其他化合物，因此没有“一个大麻”，甚至有来自同一植物的几种混合物。pCB在我们体内发现的分子靶标的复杂性反映或什至超过了这种复杂性，其中大多数都属于所谓的“内源性大麻素（eCB）系统”。在这里，我们描述了主要的pCB和eCB系统的主要组成部分，以了解它们之间的差异和相互影响，以及使用基于pCB / eCB的药物作为新型疗法治疗中枢神经系统人类疾病的潜力在外围。此外，我们解决了pCBs和eCBs进化的问题，表明后者是自然界中第一个出现的化合物，

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