Abstract
Plants belonging to the Ranunculaceae family, and particularly their seeds, have been a hot research topic in numerous pharmacognosy laboratories.Nigella glanduliferaFreyn et Sint (NG) is one of the promising, but relatively insufficiently studied, plants from this family. In this review, we summarize the recently isolated chemical constituents from the seeds of this plant including alkaloids, flavonol glycosides, isobenzofuranone derivatives, saponins, terpenes, terpenoids, and fatty acids. We put also a spotlight on the recently studied therapeutic potentials of such amazing herb seeds as antidiabetes, melanogenesis inhibition, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antithrombosis, and antiplatelet aggregation effects. Herein, we illustrate certain properties and potentials via selected examples, and thus we suggest more studies to confirm the therapeutic hypotheses, find out new compounds, and eventually to discover novel properties.
Highlights
Medicinal plants from the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae) have been applied extensively for many years to treat various diseases, the seeds
The production of the inflammation molecular mediator nitric oxide (NO), the total antioxidant capacity, mRNA expression, and protein expression examination were performed through Griess diazotization reaction, ferric reducing ability of plasma (FRAP) assay, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RTPCR), and Western blot, respectively, and the findings were that the saponins inhibited NO production in a dosedependent manner and suppressed the gene and protein expression of inducible NO synthase
Further investigations and clinical studies are still required to find out the active compounds, activity mechanisms, and possible toxicity; for instance, NG belongs to the same family (Ranunculaceae) and the same genus as Nigella sativa (NS), researches focusing on the former are still lacking, compared to the latter
Summary
Medicinal plants from the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae) have been applied extensively for many years to treat various diseases, the seeds. NG seeds are rich in various chemical constituents, such as alkaloids [1], flavonol glycosides [8], isobenzofuranone derivatives [9], saponins [9, 10] terpenes, terpenoids [11] and fatty acids [6] This plant’s seeds are used as a spice and as a treatment of some diseases, such as bronchial asthma, in southwest and western part of China [10]. More and more scientists are trying to test chemical constituents and therapeutical capacities of this herb This plant seeds contain p-cymene and thujene, which may interfere with dephosphorylation of the insulin receptor and leptin signaling [12], and oleic acid methyl ester and dioctyl phthalate (DOP) that inhibit the melanogenesis [13, 14]. It is still unclear whether the therapeutical activities found in NG seeds can be used as a treatment for humankind diseases, and whether they would present any side effects
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