Beyond resveratrol: A review of natural stilbenoids identified from 2009–2013

Abstract

Polyphenols constitute a large chemical class of phytochemicals among which the stilbenoid sub-class has attracted significant attention due to their elaborate structural diversity and biological activities. Resveratrol, a well-known stilbene, has been extensively studied due to its wide range of biological activities and occurrence in plant foods, including grape and some berries. Apart from the intact resveratrol molecule and closely related analogs, this compound can be regarded as a monomer which occurs as a primary building block for subsequent polymerization which leads to extensive structural diversity. Consequently, stilbenoids exhibit a vast array of polymerization and oligomeric construction, with over 60 such naturally occurring stilbenes being isolated and identified in the last five years alone, adding to the hundreds which are already known to date. This review updates the literature on natural stilbenoids which have been isolated and identified since 2009 and discusses the biological activities of this sub-class of bioactive polyphenols as a whole.