Archana Jain, Surendra Sarsaiya, Qihai Gong, Qin Wu, Jingshan Shi
{"title":"<i>Amorphophallus konjac</i>: traditional uses, bioactive potential, and emerging health applications.","authors":"Archana Jain, Surendra Sarsaiya, Qihai Gong, Qin Wu, Jingshan Shi","doi":"10.3389/fpls.2025.1530814","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p><i>Amorphophallus konjac</i> is a perennial plant native to Southeast Asia, renowned for its edible corms and rich nutritional value. The bioactive component, konjac glucomannan (KGM), has garnered significant attention due to its broad applications. This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the traditional uses, chemical and physical properties, and modern health applications of KGM. It highlights cutting-edge research, discusses challenges and limitations, and identifies future directions for advancing the utility of KGM in health and nutrition. KGM demonstrates remarkable health benefits, including improving metabolic health through weight management, blood glucose stabilization, and lipid profile enhancement. It also plays a vital role in gut health. Emerging evidence highlights its anti-inflammatory and immune-regulatory effects, with applications in managing inflammatory bowel disease, hyperthyroidism, and colorectal cancer (CRC). Recent advancements in multi-omics analyses and high-throughput screening (HTS) approaches have improved KGM extraction, characterization, and evaluation. However, potential side effects such as gastrointestinal discomfort and allergenicity, along with challenges in maintaining purity and molecular consistency, require careful consideration. KGM is a versatile dietary fiber with extensive applications in functional foods, nutraceuticals, and therapeutic interventions. Future research should focus on enhancing KGM's bioavailability, developing targeted delivery systems, and formulating novel applications.</p>","PeriodicalId":12632,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Plant Science","volume":"16 ","pages":"1530814"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1000,"publicationDate":"2025-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11885276/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Frontiers in Plant Science","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2025.1530814","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PLANT SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Amorphophallus konjac is a perennial plant native to Southeast Asia, renowned for its edible corms and rich nutritional value. The bioactive component, konjac glucomannan (KGM), has garnered significant attention due to its broad applications. This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the traditional uses, chemical and physical properties, and modern health applications of KGM. It highlights cutting-edge research, discusses challenges and limitations, and identifies future directions for advancing the utility of KGM in health and nutrition. KGM demonstrates remarkable health benefits, including improving metabolic health through weight management, blood glucose stabilization, and lipid profile enhancement. It also plays a vital role in gut health. Emerging evidence highlights its anti-inflammatory and immune-regulatory effects, with applications in managing inflammatory bowel disease, hyperthyroidism, and colorectal cancer (CRC). Recent advancements in multi-omics analyses and high-throughput screening (HTS) approaches have improved KGM extraction, characterization, and evaluation. However, potential side effects such as gastrointestinal discomfort and allergenicity, along with challenges in maintaining purity and molecular consistency, require careful consideration. KGM is a versatile dietary fiber with extensive applications in functional foods, nutraceuticals, and therapeutic interventions. Future research should focus on enhancing KGM's bioavailability, developing targeted delivery systems, and formulating novel applications.
期刊介绍：
In an ever changing world, plant science is of the utmost importance for securing the future well-being of humankind. Plants provide oxygen, food, feed, fibers, and building materials. In addition, they are a diverse source of industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals. Plants are centrally important to the health of ecosystems, and their understanding is critical for learning how to manage and maintain a sustainable biosphere. Plant science is extremely interdisciplinary, reaching from agricultural science to paleobotany, and molecular physiology to ecology. It uses the latest developments in computer science, optics, molecular biology and genomics to address challenges in model systems, agricultural crops, and ecosystems. Plant science research inquires into the form, function, development, diversity, reproduction, evolution and uses of both higher and lower plants and their interactions with other organisms throughout the biosphere. Frontiers in Plant Science welcomes outstanding contributions in any field of plant science from basic to applied research, from organismal to molecular studies, from single plant analysis to studies of populations and whole ecosystems, and from molecular to biophysical to computational approaches.
Frontiers in Plant Science publishes articles on the most outstanding discoveries across a wide research spectrum of Plant Science. The mission of Frontiers in Plant Science is to bring all relevant Plant Science areas together on a single platform.
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