Dear Editor,
Sulforaphane [SFN: 1-isothiocyanato-4-(methylsulfinyl)butane] belongs to the isothiocyanate class of phytochemicals. Glucoraphanin, a glucosinolate precursor of SFN, is a glucosinolate found in cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and kale. All glucosinolates are composed of a basic structure consisting of a β-D-thioglucose group, a sulfonated oxime group, and an amino acid-derived side chain. Glucosinolates are activated by enzyme-dependent hydrolysis to their respective isothiocyanates. SFN (molecular formula C6H11NOS2) is the biologically active isothiocyanate produced by the metabolism of glucoraphanin by the enzyme myrosinase (Fahey et al., 2015[11]).
SFN is one of the most frequently studied plant-derived isothiocyanate organosulfur compounds. It has been reported to exhibit a wide range of biological effects including antioxidant (Fahey and Talalay, 1999[10]), antimicrobial (Johansson et al., 2008[19]), anticancer (Amjad et al., 2015[4]), anti-inflammatory (Greaney et al., 2016[14]), anti-aging (Sikdar et al., 2016[45]), neuroprotective (Tarozzi et al., 2013[47]), and antidiabetic (Lee et al., 2012[26]).
SFN shows a range of biological activities and health benefits in humans, has been found to be a very promising chemopreventive agent against not only a variety of cancers such as breast, prostate, colon, skin, lung, stomach, and bladder but also against cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases and diabetes (Yang et al., 2016[53]). In this present study, we reviewed the most recent studies on the biological and pharmacological activities of SFN (Table 1(Tab. 1)) (References in Table 1: Pal and Konkimalla, 2016[34]; Zhao et al., 2016[55]; Wu et al., 2016[52]; Sasaki et al., 2016[39]; Jiang et al., 2016[17]; Hernández-Rabaza et al., 2016[15]; Sikdar et al., 2016[45]; Li et al., 2016[28]; Thaler et al., 2016[48]; Lan et al., 2016[23]; Shehatou and Suddek, 2016[42]; Townsend and Johnson, 2016[49]; Qi et al., 2016[37]; Abbas et al., 2016[1]; Kikuchi et al., 2015[21]; Atwell et al., 2015[6]; Ma et al., 2015[30]; Kim et al., 2015[22]; Wang et al., 2015[50]; Lubecka-Pietruszewska et al., 2015[29]; Brown et al., 2015[7]; Carrasco-Pozo et al., 2015[8]; Ambrecht et al., 2015[3]; Lavich et al., 2015[24]; Waston et al., 2015[51]; Shirai et al., 2015[43]; Prasad and Mishra, 2015[36]; Li et al., 2015[27]; Cipolla et al., 2015[9]; Angeloni et al., 2015[5]; Oguz et al., 2015[33]; Noh et al., 2015[32]; Shang et al., 2015[41]; Horwacik et al., 2015[16]; Shokeir et al., 2015[44]; Alzoubi et al., 2015[2]; Gabriel et al., 2015[13]; Kee et al., 2015[20]; Rizzo et al., 2014[38]; Pan et al., 2014[35]; Sayed et al., 2014[40]; Singh et al., 2014[46]; Maeda et al., 2014[31]; Zhang et al., 2014[54]; Lee et al., 2014[25]; Fimognari et al., 2014[12]; Jo et al., 2014[18]).
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Korea Institute of Planning and Evaluation for Technology in Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (IPET) through Agri-Bio Industry Technology Development Program, funded by Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA) (316006-5).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest
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