Bioactivity and pharmacological properties of α-mangostin from the mangosteen fruit: a review

ABSTRACT

Introduction: α-Mangostin (α-MG) is the most representative xanthone isolated from the pericarp of mangosteen, possessing extensive biological activities and pharmacological properties, considered as an antineoplastic agent, antioxidant, anti-proliferation and induces apoptosis.

Areas covered: The bioactivity and pharmacological properties of α-MG are being actively investigated by various industrial and academic institutions. The bioactivities of α-MG have been summarized in several previous reviews, which were worthy of high compliment. However, recently, many new literatures about the bioactivities of α-MG have been further reported from 2016 to 2017. Herein, the activities of α-MG are supplemented and summarized in this text.

Expert opinion: As previously said, α-MG possesses good bioactivities pharmacological properties. More recently, it found that α-MG has the effect of maintaining cardiovascular system and gastrointestinal health and controlling free radical oxidation. Furthermore, α-MG has more applications in cosmetics, with the effects of anti-aging, anti-wrinkle, acne treatment, maintenance of skin lubrication. The application of α-MG in treating rheumatoid arthritis has been disclosed and the MG-loaded self-micro emulsion (MG-SME) was designed to improve its pharmacokinetic deficiencies. As mentioned above, α-MG can be a promising drug, also worthy of developing, and further research is crucial for the future application of α-MG.

KEYWORDS:

• Α-Mangostin
• biological activities
• chemopreventive
• pharmacology

Article highlights

• In this review, we focus on the new founding about bioactivity and pharmacological properties of α-MG.

• Several preclinical studies on depositing α-MG nanoparticles to sebaceous gland area for acne treatment were performed.

• α-MG inhibits DMBA/TPA-induced skin cancer through regulating PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway in mice.

• The first discovery of the effect of α-MG on cardiac function, leading to myocardial relaxation dysfunction.

• α-MG has a potential therapeutic effect on Osteoarthritis(OA), and that this effect may be achieved by inhibiting the mitochondrial apoptosis of chondrocytes induced by an activation of the NF-kB pathway.

• α-MG has a potential protective effect on apoptotic damage cells.

• MG-SME as a nano-sized delivery system efficiently promoted the digestive tract absorption of MG and modified its distribution in tissues.

This paper summarizes many new literatures on the biological activity of α-Mangostin published during 2016–2017.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties. Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financially supported by Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China（No. LQ13H300001, No. 910Y2100872 and No. LQ17B020002）, the National Science Foundation for Young Scholars of China (No. 81202411 and No.81100241) and a foundation of the State Key Laboratory of Bio-organic and Natural Products Chemistry (No. SKLBNPC171102).