Glucosinolates and Their Hydrolytic Products—A Love Story of Environmental, Biological, and Chemical Conditions

Abstract

Abstract Background Glucosinolates (GSL) play an important role in providing defense to plants and helping them to cope with various biotic, as well as abiotic, stresses. Many living beings including humans and animals, including some herbivores, have adapted themselves to use this defense mechanism for their own use. More than 120 glucosinolates are distributed within a large number of plants. Many factors are known to influence the GSL composition in a plant. Among these, cofactors, myrosinase isozymes, heavy metals and the environmental conditions such as light, CO2 and temperature are important in regulation. These factors ensure that different glucosinolate compositions can be produced by the plants, thus impacting the defense mechanism. Objective The objective of the current review is to highlight the importance of the factors responsible for affecting glucosinolate composition and concentration. Methods The review has been compiled using accessible literature from Pubmed, Scopus, and Google scholar. Efforts have been made to restrict the literature to the last 5 years (2018–2023), with some exceptions. Results The current critical review acts as a resource for all the researchers working on these essential compounds. It provides information on the factors that may influence glucosinolate production. It also gives them an opportunity to modify the glucosinolate composition of a plant using the given information. Conclusions Glucosinolates have long been an ignored class of biomolecule. The plethora of biological activities of the compounds can be useful. Though there are some harmful components such as goitrin and progoitrin, these can be easily removed by modulating some of the factors highlighted in the review. Highlights The current review has covered most of the factors that have the ability to modify glucosinolate composition and concentration. The mechanistic action of these factors has also been discussed using the current available literature.