Abstract
Sesame seeds are rich in lignan content and have been well-known for their health benefits. Unlike the other sesame lignan compounds (i.e., sesamin and sesamol), the study of the pharmacological activity of sesamolin has not been explored widely. This review, therefore, summarizes the information related to sesamolin’s pharmacological activities, and the mechanism of action. Moreover, the influence of its physicochemical properties on pharmacological activity is also discussed. Sesamolin possessed neuroprotective activity against hypoxia-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) and oxidative stress in neuron cells by reducing the ROS and inhibiting apoptosis. In skin cancer, sesamolin exhibited antimelanogenesis by affecting the expression of the melanogenic enzymes. The anticancer activity of sesamolin based on antiproliferation and inhibition of migration was demonstrated in human colon cancer cells. In addition, treatment with sesamolin could stimulate immune cells to enhance the cytolytic activity to kill Burkitt’s lymphoma cells. However, the toxicity and safety of sesamolin have not been reported. And there is also less information on the experimental study in vivo. The limited aqueous solubility of sesamolin becomes the main problem, which affects its pharmacological activity in the in vitro experiment and clinical efficacy. Therefore, solubility enhancement is needed for further investigation and determination of its pharmacological activity profiles. Since there are fewer reports studying this issue, it could become a future prospective research opportunity.
Highlights
Sesamolin is the commonly known furofuran lignan isolated from the seeds of Sesamum indicum L. [1,2]
The use of high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) offers the rapid and cost-effective determination of lignan compounds in sesame compared to the high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), which is considered as a time-consuming method
Sesamolin showed low inhibition in mushroom tyrosinase, a key enzyme in melanogenesis, it showed high inhibition up to 50% in cellular tyrosinase at concentration 50 μg/mL compared with kojic acid and β-arbutin without causing any toxicity in noncancerous Vero and melanoma SK-MEL2 cell lines
Summary
Sesamolin is the commonly known furofuran lignan isolated from the seeds of Sesamum indicum L. [1,2]. Several recent reviews have presented the pharmacological activity of sesame oils in in vitro and in vivo experiments; some of them prefer to focus on the pharmacological effect of sesame lignans compound like sesamol or sesamin [7,8,9,10]. The compound belonging to this class needs physicochemical properties improvement, especially the solubility profile, to improve its pharmacological effect and to be developed as a drug candidate [11,12]. This issue may become the main obstacle to research sesamolin’s pharmacological activities, yet this may become a research opportunity to enhance the physicochemical properties of sesamolin in order to improve the therapeutic effect. The limitation related to the physicochemical properties of sesamolin and the future research prospects in the associated field were reviewed
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