The Genus Solanum: An Ethnopharmacological, Phytochemical and Biological Properties Review

Abstract

Over the past 30 years, the genus Solanum has received considerable attention in chemical and biological studies. Solanum is the largest genus in the family Solanaceae, comprising of about 2000 species distributed in the subtropical and tropical regions of Africa, Australia, and parts of Asia, e.g., China, India and Japan. Many of them are economically significant species. Previous phytochemical investigations on Solanum species led to the identification of steroidal saponins, steroidal alkaloids, terpenes, flavonoids, lignans, sterols, phenolic comopunds, coumarins, amongst other compounds. Many species belonging to this genus present huge range of pharmacological activities such as cytotoxicity to different tumors as breast cancer (4T1 and EMT), colorectal cancer (HCT116, HT29, and SW480), and prostate cancer (DU145) cell lines. The biological activities have been attributed to a number of steroidal saponins, steroidal alkaloids and phenols. This review features 65 phytochemically studied species of Solanum between 1990 and 2018, fetched from SciFinder, Pubmed, ScienceDirect, Wikipedia and Baidu, using "Solanum" and the species' names as search terms ("all fields").

Keywords: Ethnopharmacology; Phytochemistry; Solanaceae; Solanum; Steroidal saponins and alkaloids.

Fig. 1

Steroidal saponins 1–134 from Solanum

Fig. 1

Steroidal saponins 1–134 from Solanum

Fig. 1

Steroidal saponins 1–134 from Solanum

Fig. 1

Steroidal saponins 1–134 from Solanum

Fig. 2

Steroidal alkaloids 135–197 from Solanum

Fig. 2

Steroidal alkaloids 135–197 from Solanum

Fig. 3

Pregnane glycosides 198–210 from Solanum

Fig. 4

Triterpenoids 211–224 from Solanum

Fig. 5

Diterpenes 225–228 from Solanum

Fig. 6

Sesquiterpenes 229–310 from Solanum

Fig. 6

Sesquiterpenes 229–310 from Solanum

Fig. 7

Monoterpenes 311–338 from Solanum

Fig. 8

Flavonoids 339–413 from Solanum

Fig. 8

Flavonoids 339–413 from Solanum

Fig. 9

Lignans 414–444 from Solanum

Fig. 10

Other alkaloids 445–475 from Solanum

Fig. 11

Sterols 476–541 from Solanum

Fig. 11

Sterols 476–541 from Solanum

Fig. 12

Phenolic compounds 542–593 from Solanum

Fig. 13

Coumarins and coumestans 594–613 from Solanum

Fig. 14

Coumarinolignoids 614–617 from Solanum

Fig. 15

Fatty acids and esters 618–640 from Solanum

Fig. 16

Other compounds 641–670 from Solanum