Abstract
Melatonin is a widespread molecule among living organisms involved in multiple biological, hormonal, and physiological processes at cellular, tissue, and organic levels. It is well-known for its ability to cross the blood–brain barrier, and renowned antioxidant effects, acting as a free radical scavenger, up-regulating antioxidant enzymes, reducing mitochondrial electron leakage, and interfering with proinflammatory signaling pathways. Detected in various medicinal and food plants, its concentration is widely variable. Plant generative organs (e.g., flowers, fruits), and especially seeds, have been proposed as having the highest melatonin concentrations, markedly higher than those found in vertebrate tissues. In addition, seeds are also rich in other substances (lipids, sugars, and proteins), constituting the energetic reserve for a potentially growing seedling and beneficial for the human diet. Thus, given that dietary melatonin is absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract and transported into the bloodstream, the ingestion of medicinal and plant foods by mammals as a source of melatonin may be conceived as a key step in serum melatonin modulation and, consequently, health promotion.
Highlights
Melatonin is a tryptophan-derived substituted indoleamine (N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine; Figure 1), widely found in living, evolutionarily distant organisms [1]
It is widely recognized that melatonin is a universal amphiphilic antioxidant molecule, Nowadays, it compartments is widely recognized that melatonin is size, a universal amphiphilic able to penetrate all of a cell because of its small and good solubility inantioxidant both water molecule, able to penetrate all compartments of a cell because of its small size, and good solubility in and lipids
The primary function of melatonin is to act as a free radical’s scavenger and ROS detoxifying agent. These reactive species are highly generated during the aerobic metabolism, mainly in mitochondria and chloroplasts; it has been hypothesized that these organelles are mainly in mitochondria and chloroplasts; it has been hypothesized that these organelles are sites of melatonin biosynthesis in plants [45]
Summary
Melatonin is a tryptophan-derived substituted indoleamine (N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine; Figure 1), widely found in living, evolutionarily distant organisms [1]. [5,6], and in 1989, it wasnon-vertebrates detected in a phototrophic unicell, planarians, mollusks, insects, crustaceans). 1990s, an essential and novel function was discovered and attributed to this molecule—a highly hydroxyl radicals scavenger [11], a finding that was considered the starting point of extensive studies potent hydroxyl radicals scavenger [11], a finding thatout was the starting point of extensive on melatonin antioxidant protection, which turned toconsidered involve numerous mechanisms beyond studies on melatonin antioxidant protection, which turned out to involve numerous mechanisms radical scavenging [12,13,14,15,16,17]. Beyond radical scavenging [12,13,14,15,16,17]
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