Current potential health benefits of sulforaphane



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]).

Table 1. Recent studies on biological and pharmacological activities of sulforaphane (SFN).

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