Phytochemical, Geographical, and Pharmacological Retrospect of Genus Torilis.

BACKGROUND: Genus Torilis (Apiaceae) known as hedge parsley, encompasses 11-13 species distributed worldwide and shows potential pharmacological uses. Its phytochemical pattern is highly diversified including many phenolic and terpenic compounds.

OBJECTIVE: This research-review provides new highlighting of structural organizations, structure-activity trends, taxonomical, tissue and geographical distribution of phytocompounds of Torilis genus from extensive statistical analyses of available data.

METHOD: In extenso, exploration of documented literature and statistical data analyses were applied to update the phytochemical pool of the genus under several aspects including structural diversity, geographical distribution, biological compartmentations and pharmacological activities.

RESULTS: Phytoconstituents were classified into homogeneous clusters that revealed to be associated with chemical constitutions (aglycone types, chemical groups) and distributions (through species, tissues, geographical). About bioactivities, terpenes were studied from a pharmacological point of view with relatively high frequencies for antifungal, antibacterial, cytotoxic and anti-inflammatory activities. Preliminary structure-activity relationships were highlighted implying opposite effects between hydroxylation and methylation in favor of different activities. Crude extracts and isolated compounds have shown several biological activities (antibacterial, anticancer, antiangiogenic, antiproliferative, etc.), thus providing authentic scientific proof for their diverse uses in folk medicines.

CONCLUSION: The phytochemistry of the genus Torilis promises important perspectives in matters of pharmacological activities. These perspectives call for further investments in pharmacology because of (i) unbalance between phenolic and terpenic compounds according to the countries and (ii) more advanced current states of structural elucidations compared to biological evaluations.