Barreca Davide
Department of Chemical, Biological, Pharmaceutical and Environmental Sciences, University of Messina, 98168 Messina, Italy.
Plants (Basel). 2020 Dec 25;10(1):35. doi: 10.3390/plants10010035.
The plant kingdom is a rich source of health-promoting compounds and has always played a fundamental role in the isolation, identification, and modification of compounds able to perform several properties on live organisms. Among them, the so-called "antioxidants" have a major potentiality to increase human wellness. Antioxidants are important components in the signaling and defense mechanisms in some plants, where they are precursors of compounds of greater complexity, the modulator of plant growth, and the defensive system against pathogenic organisms and predators. The extraordinary variety of chemical structure and substitution present in the different plant antioxidants make them an inestimable source of interesting compounds, with the ability to counter reactive oxygen/nitrogen species (ROS/RNS) and to stimulate the activation of signal cascade inside the cells. The mechanisms by which antioxidants detoxify these dangerous compounds are complex and involve either direct or indirect interaction with radicals. Antioxidants inhibit or quench free radical reactions mainly based on their reducing capacity or hydrogen atom-donating capacity, their solubility, and chelating properties. Moreover, their ability to modulate key metabolic enzymes and activate/block gene transcription also has remarkable importance.
植物王国是促进健康化合物的丰富来源，在能够对活生物体发挥多种特性的化合物的分离、鉴定和修饰方面一直发挥着重要作用。其中，所谓的“抗氧化剂”具有增强人类健康的巨大潜力。抗氧化剂是某些植物信号传导和防御机制中的重要组成部分，在这些植物中，它们是更复杂化合物的前体、植物生长的调节剂以及抵御病原生物和捕食者的防御系统。不同植物抗氧化剂中存在的化学结构和取代基的非凡多样性使它们成为有趣化合物的不可估量的来源，能够对抗活性氧/氮物种（ROS/RNS）并刺激细胞内信号级联的激活。抗氧化剂使这些危险化合物解毒的机制很复杂，涉及与自由基的直接或间接相互作用。抗氧化剂主要基于其还原能力或氢原子供体能力、溶解性和螯合特性来抑制或淬灭自由基反应。此外，它们调节关键代谢酶和激活/阻断基因转录的能力也具有重要意义。
