PDF(Pubmed)
Abstract：
Plants are an important source of essential bioactive compounds that not only have a beneficial role in human health and nutrition but also act as drivers for shaping gut microbiome. However, the mechanism of their functional attributes is not fully understood despite their significance. One such important plant is Crocus sativus, also known as saffron, which possesses huge medicinal, nutritional, and industrial applications like food and cosmetics. The importance of this plant is grossly attributed to its incredible bioactive constituents such as crocins, crocetin, safranal, picrocrocin, and glycosides. These bioactive compounds possess a wide range of therapeutic activities against multiple human ailments. Since a huge number of studies have revealed negative unwanted side effects of modern-day drugs, the scientific communities at the global level are investigating a large number of medicinal plants to explore natural products as the best alternatives. Taken into consideration, the available research findings indicate that saffron has a huge scope to be further explored to establish alternative natural-product-based drugs for health benefits. In this review, we are providing an update on the role of bioactive compounds of saffron as therapeutic agents (human disorders and antimicrobial activity) and its nutritional values. We also highlighted the role of omics and metabolic engineering tools for increasing the content of key saffron bioactive molecules for its mass production. Finally, pre-clinical and clinical studies seem to be necessary to establish its therapeutic potential against human diseases.
摘要：
植物是必需生物活性化合物的重要来源，不仅对人类健康和营养具有有益作用，而且还可以作为塑造肠道微生物组的驱动因素。然而,尽管具有重要意义，但其功能属性的机制尚未完全理解。一种重要的植物是番红花，也被称为藏红花，它拥有巨大的药用，营养,以及食品和化妆品等工业应用。这种植物的重要性主要归因于其令人难以置信的生物活性成分，如crocins，番红花素,Safranal,picrocroccin,和糖苷。这些生物活性化合物对多种人类疾病具有广泛的治疗活性。由于大量研究揭示了现代药物的负面副作用，全球科学界正在调查大量药用植物，以探索天然产品作为最佳替代品。考虑到，现有的研究结果表明，藏红花有很大的空间需要进一步探索，以建立替代天然产品为基础的健康益处药物。在这次审查中,我们正在提供有关藏红花生物活性化合物作为治疗剂（人类疾病和抗菌活性）的作用及其营养价值的最新信息。我们还强调了组学和代谢工程工具在增加关键藏红花生物活性分子的含量以进行批量生产方面的作用。最后,临床前和临床研究似乎是必要的，以建立其对人类疾病的治疗潜力。
