Structures, activities, and putative biosynthetic pathways of characteristic polyphenolic compounds from Morus plants: A review

Morus plants played a pivotal role in ancient Chinese sericulture and silk production, which served as critical components of economy and culture. Besides, many parts of mulberry trees, including roots, leaves, stems, and fruits, hold various medicinal value, and have been utilized in traditional medicine for thousands of years. The chemical composition of mulberry has been reported in many literatures, while the characteristic compounds have not been systematically summarized. In this review, we focused on the polyphenolic compounds in mulberry, including flavonoids, 2-arylbenzofurans, and Diels–Alder (D–A) adducts, and summarized their structural features, structure-activity relationships, and potential biosynthetic pathways. The results revealed a characteristic class of 2′-hydroxylated flavonoids and stilbenes which played an important role in the biosynthesis of downstream 2-arylbenzofurans and D–A adducts in mulberry but had been overlooked by most studies. The prenylated modifications of different compounds were also discussed and their function as precursors of D–A adducts was emphasized. We also describe the effects of different modifications on biological activities. Besides, the chemical composition of Morus was most similar to that of Artocarpus in the Moraceae family in that they had almost identical characteristic compounds. Finally, a putative total biosynthetic pathway of D–A adducts in mulberry was proposed based on structure derivation and combination of verified reactions. This review contributes to the understanding of the biological activity and biosynthesis of the characteristic components of Morus plants.