Therapeutic Potential of Brassinosteroids in Biomedical and Clinical Research

Abstract

Steroids are a pivotal class of hormones with a key role in growth modulation and signal transduction in multicellular organisms. Synthetic steroids are widely used to cure large array of viral, fungal, bacterial, and cancerous infections. Brassinosteroids (BRs) are a natural collection of phytosterols, which have structural similarity with animal steroids. BRs are dispersed universally throughout the plant kingdom. These plant steroids are well known to modulate a plethora of physiological responses in plants leading to improvement in quality as well as yield of food crops. Moreover, they have been found to play imperative role in stress-fortification against various stresses in plants. Over a decade, BRs have conquered worldwide interest due to their diverse biological activities in animal systems. Recent studies have indicated anticancerous, antiangiogenic, antiviral, antigenotoxic, antifungal, and antibacterial bioactivities of BRs in the animal test systems. BRs inhibit replication of viruses and induce cytotoxic effects on cancerous cell lines. Keeping in view the biological activities of BRs, this review is an attempt to update the information about prospects of BRs in biomedical and clinical application.

Genome sequencing of turmeric provides evolutionary insights into its medicinal properties

“…Methyltransferases e.g., AT1G04430, serine hydroxymethyltransferase, lysine methyltransferase-like, Protein arginine methyltransferase are also involved in secondary metabolites biosynthesis and responsible for methylation of secondary metabolites, which in turn assist in disease resistance and stress tolerance in plants 68,69 . These secondary metabolites possess various medicinal applications such as anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antioxidant, and anti-carcinogenic properties 6,12,70 . The functional role of selected MSA genes involved in secondary metabolite biosynthesis and medicinal properties of the resultant metabolites are mentioned in Supplementary Table 21.…”

Genome sequencing of turmeric provides evolutionary insights into its medicinal properties

“…Methyltransferases e.g., ‘AT1G3317ff , ‘OMT’, ‘AT1G50000’ are also involved in secondary metabolites biosynthesis and responsible for methylation of secondary metabolites, which in turn assist in disease resistance and stress tolerance in plants [102], [103]. These secondary metabolites possess various medicinal applications such as anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antioxidant, and anti-carcinogenic properties [7], [16], [104], [105]. Transporter genes e.g., ‘MRS2’ and ‘AT1G29830 magnesium transporters, NRT a nitrate or nitrite transporter, ‘IREG3’ an iron-regulated transporter, TC.APA’ a polyamine transporter, and ‘AT1G51610’ a cation efflux family protein also showed multiple signs of evolution.…”

On the human health benefits of microalgal phytohormones: An explorative in silico analysis

“…Some auxins displayed anti-tumor function [18] . Some cytokinins had reveal different roles, such as neuroprotective, antioxidant, anticancer, anti-inflammatory [19] , [13] while some brassinosteroids displayed chemopreventive, antiangiogenic, antiviral, or anti-inflammatory activities [20] , [21] . Some bioactivities such as the modulation of gut-microbiota interactions in human were commonly reported among auxins, cytokinins and abscisic acid [12] , [22] .…”