The Phytocompounds of Animal Hormone Analogues

Abstract

The plants are the richest source of biocompounds. The plant origin compounds serve to orchestrate the progression of animal life through the specific action of the plant compounds in specific animal tissues. Most of the animal hormones and their pharmaco-biological mimics occurring in plants appear structurally or functionally related to the mammalian steroid hormones, especially estrogens. The plants also contain various nonsteroidal phytotestrogens, whose structures are derived from isoflavones, cyclic lactones, diterpenes, and other structural types. Various phytoestrogens are of ecological significance for animal reproduction. Their presence in plants is responsible for various abnormalities in animals like syndromes in domestic animals, infertility or decreased milk and meat production. It has been concluded that, there are no causal evolutionary relationships in the action of various phytoestrogens between animals and plants. The distribution of estrogens among the plants, possibly defensive in origin and their action on animals is likely to be purely coincidental. The phytobiocompounds should be utilized as efficiently as possible.