Alpha-tomatine and the two sides of the same coin: An anti-nutritional glycoalkaloid with potential in human health.

Discovery of new selective anticancer, anti-inflammatory, and anti-microbial agents is a crucial and necessary step to ensure a pipeline for innovative products to improve disease management. Several new bioactive agents derived from plants have been investigated and an example is the steroidal glycoalkaloid (SGA) class of natural products found in plants, investigated for their health-beneficial biological activities. Among them, α-tomatine is a SGA derived from the plant parts of unripe green tomatoes. In this review we aimed at searching for two different perspectives to study α-tomatine from green tomatoes, namely from its dual action point of view: as an anti-nutrient and as a health promoter. The aspects associated to its synthesis and degradation were considered. Finally, the current strategies for its extraction from natural sources and the methodologies commonly used for its identification and quantification were discussed.