Mukarram, M.; Choudhary, S.; Khan, M.A.; Poltronieri, P.; Khan, M.M.A.; Ali, J.; Kurjak, D.; Shahid, M. Lemongrass Essential Oil Components with Antimicrobial and Anticancer Activities. Antioxidants 2021, 11, 20, doi:10.3390/antiox11010020.
Mukarram, M.; Choudhary, S.; Khan, M.A.; Poltronieri, P.; Khan, M.M.A.; Ali, J.; Kurjak, D.; Shahid, M. Lemongrass Essential Oil Components with Antimicrobial and Anticancer Activities. Antioxidants 2021, 11, 20, doi:10.3390/antiox11010020.
Mukarram, M.; Choudhary, S.; Khan, M.A.; Poltronieri, P.; Khan, M.M.A.; Ali, J.; Kurjak, D.; Shahid, M. Lemongrass Essential Oil Components with Antimicrobial and Anticancer Activities. Antioxidants 2021, 11, 20, doi:10.3390/antiox11010020.
Mukarram, M.; Choudhary, S.; Khan, M.A.; Poltronieri, P.; Khan, M.M.A.; Ali, J.; Kurjak, D.; Shahid, M. Lemongrass Essential Oil Components with Antimicrobial and Anticancer Activities. Antioxidants 2021, 11, 20, doi:10.3390/antiox11010020.
Abstract
The prominent cultivation of lemongrass relies on the pharmacological incentives of its essential oil. The lemongrass essential oil (LEO) has a significant amount of citral (mixture of geranial and neral), isoneral, isogeranial, geraniol, geranyl acetate, citronellal, citronellol, germacrene-D, and elemol in addition to numerous other bioactive compounds. These components confer various medicinal activities to LEO including antifungal, antibacterial, antiviral, anticancer, and antioxidant properties. These attributes are commercially exploited in pharmaceutical, cosmetics, and food preservations industries. Furthermore, the employment of LEO in the treatment of cancer opens a new vista in the field of therapeutics. Although different LEO components have shown promising anticancer activities in vitro, these effects have not been assessed yet in humans. Further studies on the anticancer mechanisms exerted by lemongrass components are required. The present review intends to provide a timely discussion on the relevance of lemongrass extracts in cancer and health treatment, and in food industry applications.
Keywords
anticancer; antimicrobial; antioxidants; cancer signalling; citral; Cymbopogon; essential oil
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.