Title:Anti-Inflammatory Properties of Plant Derived Natural Products – A Systematic Review
Volume: 26
Issue: 24
Author(s): Iris E. Allijn, René P. Brinkhuis, Gert Storm and Raymond M. Schiffelers*
Affiliation:
- Clinical Chemistry and Haematology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Heidelberglaan 100, 3584 CX Utrecht,Netherlands
Keywords:
Natural products, anti-inflammatory activity, structure activity relation, physicochemical properties,
biological assays, therapeutic effects.
Abstract: Traditionally, natural medicines have been administered as plant extracts, which
are composed of a mixture of molecules. The individual molecular species in this mixture
may or may not contribute to the overall medicinal effects and some may even oppose the
beneficial activity of others. To better control therapeutic effects, studies that characterized
specific molecules and describe their individual activity that have been performed over the
past decades. These studies appear to underline that natural products are particularly effective
as antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents. In this systematic review we aimed to identify
potent anti-inflammatory natural products and relate their efficacy to their chemical structure
and physicochemical properties. To identify these compounds, we performed a comprehensive
literature search to find those studies, in which a dose-response description and a positive
control reference compound was used to benchmark the observed activity. Of the analyzed
papers, 7% of initially selected studies met these requirements and were subjected to further
analysis. This analysis revealed that most selected natural products indeed appeared to possess
anti-inflammatory activities, in particular anti-oxidative properties. In addition, 14% of the
natural products outperformed the remaining natural products in all tested assays and are attractive
candidates as new anti-inflammatory agents.