Zuzarte Mónica, Sousa Cátia, Alves-Silva Jorge, Salgueiro Lígia
Univ Coimbra, Faculty of Pharmacy, Azinhaga de S. Comba, 3000-548 Coimbra, Portugal.
Univ Coimbra, Coimbra Institute for Clinical and Biomedical Research (iCBR), Faculty of Medicine, Azinhaga de S. Comba, 3000-548 Coimbra, Portugal.
Biomedicines. 2024 Feb 4;12(2):365. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines12020365.
Ageing is a natural process characterized by a time-dependent decline of physiological integrity that compromises functionality and inevitably leads to death. This decline is also quite relevant in major human pathologies, being a primary risk factor in neurodegenerative diseases, metabolic disorders, cardiovascular diseases and musculoskeletal disorders. Bearing this in mind, it is not surprising that research aiming at improving human health during this process has burst in the last decades. Importantly, major hallmarks of the ageing process and phenotype have been identified, this knowledge being quite relevant for future studies towards the identification of putative pharmaceutical targets, enabling the development of preventive/therapeutic strategies to improve health and longevity. In this context, aromatic plants have emerged as a source of potential bioactive volatile molecules, mainly monoterpenes, with many studies referring to their anti-ageing potential. Nevertheless, an integrated review on the current knowledge is lacking, with several research approaches studying isolated ageing hallmarks or referring to an overall anti-ageing effect, without depicting possible mechanisms of action. Herein, we aim to provide an updated systematization of the bioactive potential of volatile monoterpenes on recently proposed ageing hallmarks, and highlight the main mechanisms of action already identified, as well as possible chemical entity-activity relations. By gathering and categorizing the available scattered information, we also aim to identify important research gaps that could help pave the way for future research in the field.
衰老 是一个自然过程，其特征是生理完整性随时间推移而下降，这会损害功能并不可避免地导致死亡。这种下降在主要的人类疾病中也相当重要，是神经退行性疾病、代谢紊乱、心血管疾病和肌肉骨骼疾病的主要风险因素。考虑到这一点，在过去几十年里，旨在改善这一过程中人类健康的研究大量涌现也就不足为奇了。重要的是，衰老过程和表型的主要特征已经被确定，这些知识对于未来鉴定潜在药物靶点的研究非常重要，有助于开发预防/治疗策略以改善健康和延长寿命。在这种背景下，芳香植物已成为潜在生物活性挥发性分子的来源，主要是单萜类化合物，许多研究都提到了它们的抗衰老潜力。然而，目前缺乏对现有知识的综合综述，有几种研究方法只研究孤立的衰老特征或提及总体抗衰老作用，而没有描述可能的作用机制。在此，我们旨在对挥发性单萜类化合物对最近提出的衰老特征的生物活性潜力进行更新的系统总结，并突出已经确定的主要作用机制以及可能的化学实体-活性关系。通过收集和整理现有的零散信息，我们还旨在找出重要的研究空白，为该领域的未来研究提供帮助。
