Sakuranetin State of the Art: Physical Properties, Biological Effects, and Biotechnological Trends

The search for active metabolites present in plants is of great value and has been an important source of bioactive substances for centuries. Sakuranetin, first identified in the bark of cherry trees (Prunus spp.), is a flavonoid of the flavanone subclass, acting as a phytoalexin essential for the plant defense system. The present work aims to describe the state art of sakuranetin, including physical properties, biological effects, and biotechnological trends. An investigation was carried out in the Elsevier Scopus database to understand the main aspects regarding the contributions of sakuranetin to publications reporting its biological effects. Currently, several biological activities are related to it, the most relevant being the antiviral, antibacterial, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antiparasitic, and antibiotic. The anti-inflammatory activity is the leading and most cited biological activity related to sakuranetin, and another exciting capacity is cancer cell proliferation inhibition shown over several cell cultures. Sakuranetin is already known for microbial defense of plants and antiparasitic against Leishmania species was reported, as was virostatic and virucidal characteristics for human viruses, including SARS-COV-2. Due to limitations of the flavonoid molecular characteristics, sakuranetin needs to be implemented in new technologies, and nanoencapsulation techniques are presented as an alternative for enhancing sakuranetin features. More studies are necessary to harness all of the biological potential of sakuranetin in our society.