Bioativities of plant-isolated triterpenes: A brief review

Abstract

Commonly the pharmaceutical industry uses isolated secondary plant metabolites as natural starting material of new drugs. Plants can be used as alternative therapeutic sources, as they present in their composition varieties of biologically active molecules, such as triterpenes. These constituents are secondary metabolites belonging to the terpene class and are characterized chemically by the presence of six isoprene units, with a total of 30 carbon atoms. This review was carried out based on published articles on triterpenes isolated from plants and their bioativities: anti-inflammatory, antiadipogenic, antinociceptive, antimicrobial and anticancer, compared to the period of the last ten years. In this review it was verified that, the reported activities prove that triterpenes constitute great therapeutic potential.