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Mulberry is a fast growing deciduous plant found in wide variety of climatic, topographical and soil conditions, and is widely distributed from temperate to subtropical regions. Due to presence of valuable phytochemical constituents, mulberry as a whole plant has been utilized as a functional food since long time. Mulberry fruits are difficult to preserve as they have relatively high water content. Therefore for proper utilization, different value-added products like syrups, squashes, teas, pestil sand köme, pekmez (turkuish by-products), yogurts, jams, jellies, wines, vinegar, breads, biscuits, parathas, and many more are made. In overseas, these value-added products are commercially sold and easily available, though in India, this versatile medicinal plant is still missing its identity at commercial and industrial scale. Leaves of mulberry are economically viable due to their important role in the sericulture industry since ancient times. Mulberries or its extracts exhibit excellent anti-microbial, anti-hyperglycaemic, anti-hyperlipidemic, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer effects and is used to combat different acute and chronic diseases. Different parts of Morus species like fruits, leaves, twigs, and bark exhibit strong anti-tyrosinase inhibition activity that makes it a suitable candidate in cosmetic industries as a whitening agent. The current review provides a comprehensive discussion concerning the phytochemical constituents, functionality and nutraceutical potential of mulberry and as a common ingredient in various cosmetic products.
Keywords: Mulberry, Cosmetics, Nutraceuticals, Functional food, Value addition
Mulberry belongs to the Morus genus of Moraceae family and is dispersed extensively in diverse climatic and environmental circumstances ranging from tropical to temperate. Moraceae, also known as the mulberry or fig family, is a family of flowering plants of more than twenty-four species with one subspecies and at the minimum hundred identified varieties. The term Morus is derived from the Latin word mora, which means delay, most likely because of the slow development of its buds. It is an economical and widespread woody plant and has an enormous economic value other than sericulture leading to its several unique and special features. Morus alba (white mulberry), Morus nigra (black mulberry) and Morus rubra (red mulberry) are all commonly accepted worldwide species of genus Morus as they exhibit maximum medicinal properties. Amongst all the species, M. alba is a dominant species (Ercisli and Orhan, ). Roots, leaves, bark, stem twigs, and fruits of mulberry possess valuable bioactive constituents that can be explored in food, health care, and cosmetic industries. Conventionally, it is believed that fruits of mulberry, particularly black and red varieties are advantageous to the human body (Ercisli and Orhan, ). Almost all varieties of mulberry plant are traditionally recognized in Unani, Ayurveda, and Chinese systems of medicine with several pharmacological properties. Fruits of M. nigra are among the important constituents of Unani medicine known as Tutiaswad, which is believed to have anti-cancerous activities (Nursalam, ). In India, mulberry is known as KalpaVruksha since all parts of the plant are used for various purposes and its fruit is commonly named as toot and shahtoot (King's or superior mulberry). Chinese utilizes mulberry fruit as a natural medicine to strengthen the joints, lower the blood pressure, treat fever, protect liver damage, and assist discharge of urine. Its fruits, leaves, and barks in traditional Turkish folk medicine have been utilized as an anti-fever, an expectorant, assists in the discharge of urine, to lower blood pressure, as a folk remedy to treat dental diseases, in dysentery, as a de-worming agent, laxative, anthelmintic, odontalgic, treat diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, and anaemia (Özgen et al., ). Azerbaijan people utilize M. nigra fruits in the treatment of ailments like gall bladder, liver, and heart diseases (Farid Alakbarli and Iskandar Aliyev, ). The presence of valuable constituents in mulberry leaves and fruits makes the plant suitable to be placed in the category of functional foods that are useful to human health in addition to its basic nutritional function (Kadam, ). Leaves of M. nigra are commonly used by women during menopause as a replacement for the conventional hormonal substitute therapy, with a similar effect to that obtained by estrogenic use (de Queiroz et al., ). Furthermore, its fruits, roots, and leaves extracts can be utilized in cosmetics globally and is a commonly used constituent in many dermatological creams, bath gels, and many more owing to its exceptionally high radical scavenging potential. As stated by the Ministry of Health of China in , M. alba was recorded as the first medicinal and edible fruit (Yuan and Zhao, ), and its leaves and fruits were considered not only food but also as drugs (Wang et al., ). Mulberry fruits are soft and delicate, and harvesting season lasts for a month usually from May-June in most parts of the world and the best growing temperature is between 24 and 28 °C (Sharma and Zote, , Dhiman et al., ). To properly utilize the mulberry or enhance the storage life, maintain nutritional and organoleptic qualities, and to minimize the waste, the possibility of introducing mulberry as a functional food and nutraceutical is a need of the hour that many researchers are looking forward to. Nonetheless, being exceptionally good in nutrients and comparatively low in fats can be considered a good choice for healthy consumers. An overview of multifunctional role of mulberry is shown in Fig. 1.
Diverse application of mulberries in multiple areas.
Based on the existing literature on the mulberry, it will be interesting to review the effectiveness of this multifunctional plant in attributing different functional properties, when being incorporated in several food products and to explore its nutraceutical applications and dermatological role with special emphasis on tyrosinase inhibition activity.
The current review attempted to provide a holistic insight into the nutraceutical potential of Morus in preventing various health-related issues and to investigate the possibilities of using mulberry as a functional food with some formulations and as a common ingredient in many cosmetics.
Mulberry is typically a deciduous or medium sized woody perennial tree having upright fissured bark and cylindrical stem with a milky sap growing upto 1013 m tall (Singh et al., , Rahman and Khanom, ). Leaves of mulberry vary in shape and size, usually range from 5 to 7.5 cm long and 610 cm wide and are mostly deeply lobed, margins serrate, shortly acuminate, apex acute or, base cordate or truncate; 3 basal nerves, lateral nerves forked near the margins. Flowers are yellowish green in colour with chromosome number 2n = 28. Female spikes are ovoid and stalked while as male spikes (catkins) are cylindrical and broad. Male catkins tend to be longer than female catkins. Botanically, mulberry fruit is precisely a cluster of small fruits that are organised longitudinally around the central axis similar to that in blackberry or loganberries. Its fruit or syncarp comprises of numerous drupes that are enclosed in a fleshy perianth, ovoid or sub globose, upto 5 cm long, white to pinkish white, purple or black when ripe (Anonymous, ). In terms of morphology and growth habits, mulberry ovary is unicellular with a bifid stigma and analogous to that of other fleshy drupaceous fruits. Scientific classification of Morus species is given in Fig. 2.
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Scientific classification of mulberry.
In traditional medicine, the usage of M. alba is credited toits excellent diuretic properties, which are mainly owed to the free radical scavenging attribute. A mixture made of M. alba fruit (ethanolic extract) and gentamicin with a dosage of 200 mg/kg/day and 80 mg/kg/day, respectively for three weeks controlled the serum uric acid, creatinine, blood urea nitrogen content in rabbits (Ullah et al., ). Mulberroside A (stilbene glycoside) from twigs of M. alba at 10, 20, and 40 mg/kg significantly treated renal dysfunction by suppressing the elevated protein and mRNA levels of renal glucose transporter 9(mGLUT9) and urate transporter 1 (mURAT1) in hyperuricemia mice (Wang et al., ). Morusinol a flavonoid extracted from the root bark of M. alba may significantly inhibit arterial thrombosis that was recently studied for cardiovascular potential (Lee et al., ). The alcoholic extract of M. alba leaves showed hepatoprotective effect against hepatotoxicity induced by carbon tetrachloride and paracetamol in Swiss albino mice (Hogade et al., ). M. alba juice is helpful in the prevention of food-borne viral infection (norovirus infection) by inhibiting the internalization and replication of murine norovirus-1 (MNV-1), wherein it may affect the adherence or internalization of feline calicivirus-F9 (FCV-F9) virions (Lee et al., ). M. alba juice may also induce anti-stress activity in Balb/c mice through a mechanism of radical scavenging activity (Sakagami et al., ).
From current scientific studies, it can therefore be inferred that mulberry exhibits substantial antioxidant capacity in vitro and in vivo, making them promising nutraceuticals.
Natural products are now being re-emphasized in order to address a variety of health issues. The correlation between health and diet is well established, and consumers are becoming more conscious of their eating habits. Investigating these connections has resulted in the creation of functional, nutraceuticals, and pharma foods, which are now dominating the global nutrition market. The current review intended to highlight the significance and application of Morus species in different areas and it becomes amply clear from the above discourse that mulberry is a versatile medicinal plant with enormous vitality. Recent approaches regarding the functional applications revealed that Morus species and their bioactive phytochemicals display a wide variety of biomedical activities, including antioxidants, anti-diabetic, hypo-lipidemic, anti-obesity, anti-hypertensive, and anti-atherosclerosis, etc. Morus extracts or their constituents particularly flavonoids like chlorogenic acid, quercetin, rutin and isoquercitrin scavenge free radicals exhibiting potential against oxidative stress. Alkaloids like DNJ and fagomine present in M. alba exhibit potential glucosidase inhibition. Compounds like moracin, morusin, kuwanon isolated from wood and stem bark of M. nigra exhibit anti-microbial activity. Tyrosinase inhibition properties of Morus species are comparable to kojic acid that makes it a wonderful ingredient in cosmetics. Chemical compounds like maclurin and morin, mulberroside F, oxyresveratrol and austraone isolated from different parts of M. alba exhibit potential tyrosinase inhibition activity. In addition to its exceptional usage as a nutraceutical in the pharmaceutical industry, it is often used in food industries because of the power source of anthocyanins that exhibit strong antioxidant properties and are used as a natural colouring agent. Being low in calories, this plant can be utilised in the formulation of hypocaloric foodstuffs and can be added as a novel ingredient to enhance the functional properties of existing foods. Value added products like jam, jelly, wine, vinegar, tea, syrup, squash and many more are formulated from Morus that aids industrialists for effective utilization of its fruits and leaves. Additionally mulberry is among the major ingredients in many traditional formulations sold worldwide. Chemical composition of mulberry is already extensively studied, there are still some unidentified biological compounds that require proper exploration. It is necessary, however, to investigate the metabolites produced in vivo and how they exert their biological effects in future studies.
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Authors would like to acknowledge Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), New Delhi, India for providing scholarship to the author (Sanction No. 3/1/2/161/) to carry out the present work.
Peer review under responsibility of King Saud University.
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