Importance of Brassica napus as a medicinal food plant

Abstract

Brassica napus L. (B. napus L) (Cruciferae), is one of the cultivated medicinal food plants in Middle Asia, North Africa and West Europe. In Iranian traditional medicine, the root parts of this plant were used for the therapeutic properties as diuretic, anti-scurvy, anti-inflammatory of bladder and anti-goat. The usage of rapeseed oil as a food product as well as in the production of non-nutrition products such as greases, lubricant oils and especially bio-fuel may cause the increasing in rapeseed production in the world with FAO estimation of 58.4 million tons in the 2010-2011.The presence of a high quantity of erucic acid in natural rapeseed oil makes it toxic for consuming and the edible rapeseed oil is prepared from plant's hybrid (contained little or no eurcic acid) which used as cooking oil. Unfortunately, the medicinal properties of this plant have not been considered and are going to forget by expert scientists except the seed oil. Alongside the world trend to increase the cultivation of this plant, more evaluations on the pharmacological and biological activities of B. napus L. is recommended especially using traditional and folk experiences based documents. In this paper, the important achievements of phytochemistry and pharmacology for this plant are reviewed.

Rapeseed (Brassica napus): Processing, Utilization, and Genetic Improvement

“…This could be explained by the presence of steroids in pollen, which could affect cancer cells' viability, notably in the prostate [258][259][260]. Apart from the leaves, rapeseed roots are also beneficial because of their various diuretic, anti-gout, anti-inflammatory, and anti-scurvy qualities [261]. Some recent studies have demonstrated that rapeseed has a good performance against Alzheimer's [262] and prostate disease [263].…”

The Potential Use of Plant Natural Products and Plant Extracts with Antioxidant Properties for the Prevention/Treatment of Neurodegenerative Diseases: In Vitro, In Vivo and Clinical Trials

“…Although some secondary plant metabolites are thought to have disease-protecting properties in vivo, they are non-essential nutrients for humans. Phytochemicals from plants were shown to exhibit different biological activities, such as anti-inflammatory [41,42,43,44], anti-microbial [45,46], anti-carcinogenic [46,47] and anti-diabetic properties [48,49]. Some of these are due to the regulation of several cellular molecular pathways [50].…”

Comparative transcriptome analysis identifies candidate genes related to seed coat color in rapeseed

“…Rapeseed ( Brassica napus L., AACC, 2n = 38) is an important oilseed crop worldwide, serving as a source of edible vegetable oil and feed meal ( Saeidnia and Gohari, 2012 ; Carruthers et al., 2017 ; Kaur et al., 2020 ). Increasing seed oil content is an important breeding objective in rapeseed.…”