Review: Natural products isolated from Portulaca oleracea (purslane, Ma-Chi-Xian): Focus on oleraciamides and oleracones

Abstract. Bailly C. 2021. Review: Natural products isolated from Portulaca oleracea (purslane, Ma-Chi-Xian): Focus on oleraciamides and oleracones. Nusantara Bioscience 13: 202-210. The plant Portulaca oleracea L., known as purslane in English and Ma-Chi-Xian in Chinese, is largely used in traditional medicine to treat a variety of diseases and conditions, including dysentery, urinary tract dysfunctions, and post-partum bleeding. It is also an edible plant, with a high nutritional potential. Extracts of P. oleracea display antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and antiproliferative activities, associated with the presence of numerous bioactive secondary metabolites, including alkaloids, terpenoids, lignans and polysaccharides. The present review provides a specific focus on two sub-groups of natural products isolated in recent years from P. oleracea: the alkaloids oleraciamides A-to-G, and the oleracones A-to-L which are mostly flavonoids. Their structural diversity and pharmacological properties, described in recent publications and patents, have been analyzed. These two subgroups of natural products deserve additional studies to delineate their mechanism of action. They could serve as a starting point to the design of novel anti-inflammatory agents, at least for some of them. This review provides a global view of these compounds, necessary to promote further phytochemical studies and to better apprehend the traditional use of the plant and its extracts.