Phyllobilins – ubiquitous natural products with pharmacologically relevant activities

Phyllobilins are a group of plant-derived bilin-type linear tetrapyrroles, which are generated in the process of chlorophyll degradation. Despite the visibility this biochemical pathway, the as well as the biochemical players involved have remained undetected for a very long time. Only 30 years ago was the first phyllobilin isolated and characterized by spectroscopic methods,which set the stage for the discovery of a variety of phyllobilins with different structural modifications depending on the plant species. Phyllobilins have primarily been regarded as products of a detoxification pathway employed by plants to get rid of phototoxic chlorophyll. Therefore, they have been overlooked as natural product class in terms of a biological role or pharmacological activity of their own. [1] A change of this paradigm, however, is long overdue.

For the first time, we show important pharmacological activities of phyllobilins as ingredients of medicinal plants, comprising potent antioxidative activities,[2] anti-inflammatory activities,[3] and activities on cancer cells.[4] This research sets the stage to systematically investigate the occurrence of phyllobilins and their roles as important phytochemicals.

Publication History

Article published online:
13 December 2021

• References

• 1 Wang P., Karg C.A., Frey N., Vollmar A.M., Moser S. Archiv der Pharmazie, in press
• 2 Karg C.A., Wang P., Vollmar A.M., Moser S. Phytomedicine 2019; 152969
• 3 Karg C.A.. et al Food Chemistry 2021; 359: 129906
• 4 Karg C.A.. et al European Journal of Organic Chemistry 2020; 4499-4509