Strawberry, a Delicious Source of Health Promoting Phytochemicals

The health promoting phytochemicals in the garden strawberry, Fragaria ´ananassa, have been studied for quite some time, and new ones are still being discovered. Among these are the phenolics, including flavonoids, anthocyanins, flavonols, and flavin-3-ols. Phenolic compounds with reported benefits for human health and that are somewhat particular to strawberry include ellagic acid (dimeric gallic acid) and the associated ellagitannins, consisting of heterogeneous polymers of primarily gallic acid that are often esterified with simple sugars. These compounds have remedial effects against a wide range of human diseases, from cancer to cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disorders. Acylphloroglucinol glucosides have also been found in strawberry. These phenolic compounds, known to occur in only a few plants, have antibacterial activity as well as cytotoxic, antiproliferative, and antiangiogenic effects.

F. ´ananassa is a fairly recent octoploid hybrid of two naturally occurring octoploid species from North and South America. Much more amenable to laboratory studies, a diploid Fragaria species, the woodland strawberry F. vesca, has been developed as a reference plant for genetic, genomic, and metabolic studies of strawberry. Publication of the F. vesca genome sequence in 2010 and the development of useful germplasm such as documented inbred lines and recombinant inbred lines (RILS), together with the availability of methods for identifying and quantifying phenolic compounds contributed substantially to uncovering the biosynthetic pathways for the important phenolics in strawberry and the complex regulation of the genes involved. This talk will give an overview of what is known, and describe tools and resources available for further research.