Elderberries: A Source of Ribosome-Inactivating Proteins with Lectin Activity

Abstract

Sambucus (Adoxaceae) species have been used for both food and medicine purposes. Among these, Sambucus nigra L. (black elder), Sambucus ebulus L. (dwarf elder), and Sambucus sieboldiana L. are the most relevant species studied. Their use has been somewhat restricted due to the presence of bioactive proteins or/and low molecular weight compounds whose ingestion could trigger deleterious effects. Over the last few years, the chemical and pharmacological characteristics of Sambucus species have been investigated. Among the proteins present in Sambucus species both type 1, and type 2 ribosome-inactivating proteins (RIPs), and hololectins have been reported. The biological role played by these proteins remains unknown, although they are conjectured to be involved in defending plants against insect predators and viruses. These proteins might have an important impact on the nutritional characteristics and food safety of elderberries. Type 2 RIPs are able to interact with gut cells of insects and mammals triggering a number of specific and mostly unknown cell signals in the gut mucosa that could significantly affect animal physiology. In this paper, we describe all known RIPs that have been isolated to date from Sambucus species, and comment on their antiviral and entomotoxic effects, as well as their potential uses.

Bioactive properties of Sambucus nigra L. as a functional ingredient for food and pharmaceutical industry

“…Type II RIPs occur in elderberry bark (e.g. nigrin b-SNA V, SNA I), fruit (nigrin f) and seeds (nigrin s) (Stripe, 2004;Tejero et al, 2015). Moreover, elderberry contains the allergen Sam n1, which causes type 1 allergy and some tryptic peptides of Sam n1 demonstrate a high amino acid sequence with lectins and type 2 RIPs located in Sambucus 2013).…”

A Review of the Antiviral Properties of Black Elder (Sambucus nigraL.) Products

“…Some S. nigra constituents are potentially hazardous. The fruit contains a small concentration of an RIP with slight cytotoxic effects, SNA‐V, which is found in higher concentrations in the unripe fruit (Citores et al, ; Tejero et al, ). This is one of multiple RIPs that may harbor slight toxicity (van Damme et al, ; de Benito et al, ; Tejero et al, ; Shang et al, ).…”

“…The fruit contains a small concentration of an RIP with slight cytotoxic effects, SNA‐V, which is found in higher concentrations in the unripe fruit (Citores et al, ; Tejero et al, ). This is one of multiple RIPs that may harbor slight toxicity (van Damme et al, ; de Benito et al, ; Tejero et al, ; Shang et al, ). Thoroughly cooking the fruit (or boiling the juice) before use, however, should denature such proteins; while this has not yet been experimentally demonstrated with S. nigra RIPs, a study on S. ebulus berries found that heating the fruit sufficiently inhibited toxic effects from a lectin, which shows high homology to the S. nigra RIP Sam n1 (Jimenez et al, ).…”

Plant AB Toxins with Lectin Domains

“…Several type 2 RIPs from S. nigra such as SNA-I, SNA-I', SNA-V (or nigrin b), and SNLRP showed the potential to protect transgenic tobacco plants against tobacco mosaic virus infection (Chen et al 2002;Vandenbussche et al 2004a). Furthermore, SNA-I, SNA-V, and SNLRP exhibit a potent N-glycosidase activity on tobacco mosaic virus RNA by multidepurination of the RNA chain (Tejero et al 2015). These antiviral activities possibly rely on the direct depurination of the viral genomic RNA, since the expression of SNA-V did not induce the synthesis of pathogenesis-related proteins.…”