Abstract
Flavonoids are the largest class of plant polyphenols, with common structure of diphenylpropanes, consisting of two aromatic rings linked through three carbons and are abundant in both daily diets and medicinal plants. Fueled by the recognition of consuming flavonoids to get better health, researchers became interested in deciphering how flavonoids alter the functions of human body. Here, systematic studies were performed on 679 flavonoid compounds and 481 corresponding targets through bioinformatics analysis. Multiple human diseases related pathways including cancers, neuro-disease, diabetes, and infectious diseases were significantly regulated by flavonoids. Specific functions of each flavonoid subclass were further analyzed in both target and pathway level. Flavones and isoflavones were significantly enriched in multi-cancer related pathways, flavan-3-ols were found focusing on cellular processing and lymphocyte regulation, flavones preferred to act on cardiovascular related activities and isoflavones were closely related with cell multisystem disorders. Relationship between chemical constitution fragment and biological effects indicated that different side chain could significantly affect the biological functions of flavonoids subclasses. Results will highlight the common and preference functions of flavonoids and their subclasses, which concerning their pharmacological and biological properties.
Highlights
Flavonoids are a family of phenolic substances sharing the same backbone structure of 2-pheny11,4-benzopyronemay, which are very abundant in nature, being accumulated in regular human diets including flowers (Zhang and Ma, 2018), fruits (Chang et al, 2018), vegetables, tea, wine (Matveeva et al, 2018), and so on (Szmitko and Verma, 2005)
The targets of flavonoids were enriched in multiple essential pathways including metabolism, genetic information processing, environmental information processing, cellular process, organismal systems, and multiple pathways which were related to human diseases such as infectious diseases and cancer
Comprehensive analysis was proposed to explore the mechanism of action (MOA) of natural flavonoid products and results indicated that flavonoids could affect essential pathways in several categories such metabolism, genetic information processing, environmental information processing, cellular processes, organismal systems, and human diseases related pathways
Summary
Flavonoids are a family of phenolic substances sharing the same backbone structure of 2-pheny11,4-benzopyronemay, which are very abundant in nature, being accumulated in regular human diets including flowers (Zhang and Ma, 2018), fruits (Chang et al, 2018), vegetables, tea, wine (Matveeva et al, 2018), and so on (Szmitko and Verma, 2005). On the basis of common core scaffold, various combinations of substituent chemical groups on different positions may lead to structure diversity of flavonoids. This diversity can be further increased with possible variations of different functional groups, such as hydroxyl, methoxyl, carbonyl, and olefinic groups (Gontijo et al, 2017). According to the structure variations, flavonoids can be generally assigned into six main subclasses: flavones, flavonols, flavanones, flavanols, flavan3-ols, and isoflavones (Ross and Kasum, 2002), for which the chemical properties depend on their structural classes, degrees of hydroxylation, substitutions, conjugation, and degree of polymerization (Kumar and Pandey, 2013). The functional similarities and differences, as well as the structure basis of different functions for flavonoids subclasses are not fully revealed yet
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