Title:Furanodienone: An Emerging Bioactive Furanosesquiterpenoid
Volume: 21
Issue: 4
Author(s): Federica Messina, Giulia Gigliarelli, Alfie Palmier and Maria C. Marcotullio
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, commiphora, curcuma, cytotoxicity.
Abstract: This review surveys the literature published on the emerging biological properties of furanodienone.
Furanodienone (FDN) (1) is a furanosesquiterpenoid belonging to the class of furanogermacranes. This class of
secondary metabolites is usually not widespread as they are present only in Asteraceae, Apiaceae, Myrtaceae,
Lauraceae, Zingiberaceae and Burseraceae. It is commonly isolated from several species of Curcuma and Commiphora.
This compound was shown to have several interesting activities, e.g. anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial
and anticancer activity. Several in vitro and in vivo studies showed that FDN is able to inhibit several proinflammatory
enzymes, such as COX and LOX, it decreases NO generation and reduces the production of proinflammatory
cytokines. Furthermore, it is able to inhibit cell proliferation in different cancer cell lines, through
the induction of apoptosis. Tested against several microorganism, FDN showed an antibacterial activity against
Gram (+) and Gram (-) bacteria, an antifungal activity against pathogenic and phytopathogenic fungi, and an antiprotozoal
activity against Trypanosoma brucei.
