Phytoalexins: Current and possible future applications in human health and diseases control

Abstract

Plants are prone to diseases and infections following their obvious exposure to microbes and attendant microbial attacks. Plants control diseases and infections by using their secondary metabolites known collectively as phytoalexins. These phytoalexins, usually synthesized in plants in response to diseases and infections, have enormous chemical diversity and biologic roles but are essentially non biodegradable owing to their stable structures hence could bio-accumulate with sustained effect once synthesized. Thus, this reviewed current and possible future applications of phytoalexins in human health and diseases control using relevant search words and search engines. The review noted that resveratrol, a representative of, and an extensively studied, phytoalexins was variously implicated in the management of human health, including in the prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancers. Resveratrol acts via mechanisms essentially related to its capacity to ameliorate oxidative stress perhaps by significantly enhancing the synthesis of nitric oxide, NO, which could act as an antioxidant. Increased oxidative stress has been implicated in human diseases and efforts aimed at mitigating (or preventing the onset of) oxidative stress have been the underlying approach to human disease management and control. Thus, the current applications of phytoalexins as shown by resveratrol could be extended to other human health and diseases, warranting detailed empirical studies.