REVIEW Echinacea plants as antioxidant and antibacterial agents: From traditional medicine to biotechnological applications Mehdi Sharifi‐Rad 1 | Dima Mnayer 2 | Maria Flaviana Bezerra Morais‐Braga 3 | Joara Nályda Pereira Carneiro 3 | Camila Fonseca Bezerra 3 | Henrique Douglas Melo Coutinho 3 | Bahare Salehi 4,5 | Miquel Martorell 6 | María del Mar Contreras 7 | Azam Soltani‐Nejad 8 | Yoshie Adriana Hata Uribe 9 | Zubaida Yousaf 10 | Marcello Iriti 11 | Javad Sharifi‐Rad 12,13 1 Department of Medical Parasitology, Zabol University of Medical Sciences, Zabol, Iran 2 Department of Agricultural Engineering and Veterinary Medicine, Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon 3 Laboratório de Microbiologia e Biologia Molecular – LMBM, Departamento de Química Biológica – DQB, Universidade Regional do Cariri – URCA, Av. Cel. Antonio Luiz, 1161. Pimenta, Crato, CE, Brazil 4 Medical Ethics and Law Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 5 Student Research Committee, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 6 Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, School of Pharmacy, University of Concepcion, Concepcion, Chile 7 Departamento de Química Analítica, Instituto Universitario de Investigación en Química Fina y Nanoquímica IUIQFN, Universidad de Córdoba, Campus de Rabanales, Edificio Marie Curie, Córdoba E‐14071, Spain 8 Department of Genetics and Biotechnology, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India 9 Departamento de Farmacia, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia 10 Department of Botany, Lahore College for Women University, Lahore, Pakistan 11 Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Milan State University, Milan, Italy 12 Phytochemistry Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 13 Department of Chemistry, Richardson College for the Environmental Science Complex, The University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB, Canada Correspondence Bahare Salehi, Medical Ethics and Law Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran and Student Research Committee, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Email: bahar.salehi007@gmail.com Marcello Iriti, Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Milan State University Milan, Italy. Email: marcello.iriti@unimi.it Javad Sharifi‐Rad, Phytochemistry Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Email: javad.sharifirad@gmail.com The genus Echinacea consists of 11 taxa of herbaceous and perennial flowering plants. In particular, Echinacea purpurea (L.) Moench is widely cultivated all over the United States, Canada, and in Europe, exclusively in Germany, for its beauty and reported medicinal properties. Echinacea extracts have been used traditionally as wound healing to improve the immune system and to treat respiratory symptoms caused by bacterial infections. Echinacea extracts have demonstrated antioxidant and antimi- crobial activities, and to be safe. This survey aims at reviewing the medicinal proper- ties of Echinacea species, their cultivation, chemical composition, and the potential uses of these plants as antioxidant and antibacterial agents in foods and in a clinical context. Moreover, the factors affecting the chemical composition of Echinacea spp. are also covered. KEYWORDS Asteraceae, Echinacea purpurea, ethnobotany, ethnopharmacology, herbal remedies, immunomodulatory activity Received: 26 November 2017 Revised: 1 April 2018 Accepted: 5 April 2018 DOI: 10.1002/ptr.6101 Phytotherapy Research. 2018;1–11. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ptr 1