In the last years, consumers are paying much more attention to natural medicines and principles, mainly due to the general sense that natural compounds are safe. On the other hand, there is a growing demand by industry for plants used in traditional medicine that could be incorporated in foods, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, or even pharmaceuticals. Glycyrrhiza glabra Linn. belongs to the Fabaceae family and has been recognized since ancient times for its ethnopharmacological values. This plant contains different phytocompounds, such as glycyrrhizin, 18β-glycyrrhetinic acid, glabrin A and B, and isoflavones, that have demonstrated various pharmacological activities. Pharmacological experiments have demonstrated that different extracts and pure compounds from this species exhibit a broad range of biological properties, including antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antioxidant, and antidiabetic activities. A few toxicological studies have reported some concerns. This review addresses all those issues and focuses on the pharmacological activities reported for G. glabra. Therefore, an updated, critical, and extensive overview on the current knowledge of G. glabra composition and biological activities is provided here in order to explore its therapeutic potential and future challenges to be utilized for the formulation of new products that will contribute to human well-being.

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Liquorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra): A phytochemical and pharmacological review

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1096-0031.2008.00212.x

Plant Systematics: A Phylogenetic Approach

COVID-19: Disease, management, treatment, and social impact.

Based on World Health Organization reports, resistance of bacteria to well-known antibiotics is a major global health challenge now and in the future. Different strategies have been proposed to tackle this problem including inhibition of multidrug resistance pumps and biofilm formation in bacteria and development of new antibiotics with novel mechanism of action. Flavonoids are a large class of natural compounds, have been extensively studied for their antibacterial activity, and more than 150 articles have been published on this topic since 2005. Over the past decade, some promising results were obtained with the antibacterial activity of flavonoids. In some cases, flavonoids (especially chalcones) showed up to sixfold stronger antibacterial activities than standard drugs in the market. Some synthetic derivatives of flavonoids also exhibited remarkable antibacterial activities with 20- to 80-fold more potent activity than the standard drug against multidrug-resistant Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria (including Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Staphylococcus aureus). This review summarizes the ever changing information on antibacterial activity of flavonoids since 2005, with a special focus on the structure-activity relationship and mechanisms of actions of this broad class of natural compounds.

Antibacterial activity of flavonoids and their structure-activity relationship: An update review.

Persian Liquorice extract as a highly efficient sustainable corrosion inhibitor for mild steel in sodium chloride solution

The antiviral and antimicrobial activities of licorice, a widely-used Chinese herb.

Context: Increasing incidence and impact of inflammatory diseases have encouraged the search of new pharmacological strategies to face them. Licorice has been used to treat inflammatory diseases since ancient times in China.Objective: To summarize the current knowledge on anti-inflammatory properties and mechanisms of compounds isolated from licorice, to introduce the traditional use, modern clinical trials and officially approved drugs, to evaluate the safety and to obtain new insights for further research of licorice.Methods: PubMed, Web of Science, Science Direct and ResearchGate were information sources for the search terms ‘licorice’, ‘licorice metabolites’, ‘anti-inflammatory’, ‘triterpenoids’, ‘flavonoids’ and their combinations, mainly from year 2010 to 2016 without language restriction. Studies were selected from Science Citation Index journals, in vitro studies with Jadad score less than 2 points and in vivo and clinical studies with experimental flaws were excluded.Results: Two hundred ...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13880209.2016.1225775

The anti-inflammatory activity of licorice, a widely used Chinese herb

Licorice is one of the oldest and most frequently used herbs in traditional Chinese medicine. It contains more than 20 triterpenoids and 300 flavonoids. In recent years, a lot of studies have reported that the active compounds isolated from licorice possess antitumor, antimicrobial, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, immunoregulatory, and several other activities that contribute to the recovery and protection of the nervous, alimentary, respiratory, endocrine, and cardiovascular systems. In this paper, nine different pharmacological activities of licorice are summarized. The active compounds responsible for these pharmacological activities, the molecular mechanisms, and in vivo and in vitro studies are listed in detail. Furthermore, the clinical therapeutics and toxicity studies of licorice are also discussed. We hope this work can provide a basis for further studies concerning with the safe and effective use of licorice.

/pdf/the-pharmacological-activities-of-licorice-1jrdbei4cd.pdf

The Pharmacological Activities of Licorice

Context: Radix Bupleuri has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for over 2000 years with functions of relieving exterior syndrome, clearing heat, regulating liver-qi, and lifting yang...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13880209.2016.1262433

A systematic review of the active saikosaponins and extracts isolated from Radix Bupleuri and their applications

Licorice is one of the most frequently used Chinese herbs, mainly containing triterpenoids and flavonoids. Three original plants, Glycyrrhiza glabra L., Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch., and Glycyrrhiza inflata Bat., are defined as licorice in Chinese pharmacopeia. In this study, 40 G. uralensis samples (Group A), 60 G. glabra samples (Group B, C and D) and 40 G. inflata samples (Group E and F), were used as plant materials, the genetic diversity of samples were determined by gene sequencing technology and the chemotypic diversity were detected by HPLC. The chemotypic diversity analysis showed that contents of triterpenoids in G. glabra (isoglycyrrhizin: 2.483±0.0671 mg∙g-1, glycyrrhizin: 34.660±0.8591 mg∙g-1) were obviously higher than that in G. uralensis and G. inflata. However, the contents of flavonoids (liquiritin: 21.996±0.6396 mg∙g-1, isoliquiritin: 4.556±0.1252 mg∙g-1, liquiritigenin: 0.623±0.0200 mg∙g-1, isoliquiritigenin: 0.281±0.008 mg∙g-1) in G. uralensis were higher than that in G. glabra and G. inflata. And contents of triterpenoids and flavonoids were both lowest in G. inflata. The genetic diversity analysis showed that the psbA-trnH intergenic regions on chloroplast DNA sequences were same in the same species, and significantly different between any two species. These findings will lay a solid foundation for the identification and quality control of licorice. Furthermore, recently the activity of isoglycyrrhizin has attracted more and more attentions and researches. The HPLC method established in this paper for the simultaneous assay of isoglycyrrhizin and glycyrrhizin will be helpful for the screening of superior quality licorice with a high content of isoglycyrrhizin.

The genetic and chemical diversity in three original plants of licorice, Glycyrriza uralensis Fisch., Glycyrrhiza inflata Bat. and Glycyrrhiza glabra L.

Bochuan Yuan

Papers

The antiviral and antimicrobial activities of licorice, a widely-used Chinese herb.

The anti-inflammatory activity of licorice, a widely used Chinese herb

The Pharmacological Activities of Licorice

A systematic review of the active saikosaponins and extracts isolated from Radix Bupleuri and their applications

The genetic and chemical diversity in three original plants of licorice, Glycyrriza uralensis Fisch., Glycyrrhiza inflata Bat. and Glycyrrhiza glabra L.