Bioenergética: Acesso Aberto

Abstrato

A review on bioactivity of flavonoids in biotechnological applications

Zeliha Selamoglu

Flavonoids are present in many phytomedicines or nutraceuticals to prevent oxidative damage related health problems. Flavonoids are found ubiquitously in plants as a member of phenolic compounds that share diverse chemical structure and function. Phenolic compounds have been acknowledged for their wide array of functions. Many of these compounds, such as plant phenolics, often exhibit antioxidant activities; therefore the addition of these compounds into food products may be helpful to health the of consumers and also to the stabilization of food products. Flavonoids are potent bioactive compounds that have anticarcinogenic effects since they can interfere with the initiation, development and progression of cancer by the modulation of cellular proliferation, apoptosis and metastasis. Due to the presence of some of these effective compounds such as flavonoids, phenolic acids and their esters in natural products such as plants and their extracts, if the positive physiological properties and the nontoxicity of the these products are proven it could be used as a mild antioxidant and preservative. The ethnopharmacological approach, combined with biochemical and biological modalities, may provide useful biotechnological leads. Due to their biotechnological and pharmacological activities, they have been used in folk medicine. Newly, investigations have been concerned over the different nutritional products due to their antioxidant potential to prevent or treat the diseases of human and animal.