Revista de Bioprocessamento e Biotécnicas

The Plant Natural Products: Their Antioxidants, Free Radical Scavengers, DNA Protection and Antimicrobial Activities

Abstract

Khalid S. Abdel-lateif, Ibrahim A. Maghrabi and Hany A. Eldeab

The plant natural products are chemical compounds or substances produced by plants and have different activities or functions. These products exhibited several important biological activities such as antimicrobial, anti-allergic, antiinflammatory, antioxidant and free radical scavenging due to their rich content of compounds as polyphenols. The highly reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated during the metabolism can cause oxidative damage for biomolecules as RNA and DNA, resulting in cell cellular damage and death. It was shown that the antioxidant activities found in plant natural products could provide protective effects via inhibiting DNA oxidative damage. This review highlights some of important roles of the plant natural products as antioxidants and as antimicrobials.