Comment by Sofia Magli (Russo’s Lab)
The need of identifying sustainable ways to obtain a balanced diet for human mankind is one of the major challenges known worldwide. The importance of identifying or resuming new species of agricultural interest does not deal only with nutritional and healthy needs, but also with environmental and sustainability concerns. Our TecSBi PhD students Davide Panzeri (Labra’s Lab) and Nicola Tommasi (Galimberti’s Lab) went in depth to the remarkable properties of Corchorus olitorius L. Their work entitled “Assessment of Dietary Bioactive Phenolic Compounds and Agricultural Sustainability of an African Leafy Vegetable Corchorus olitorius L.” just published in Frontiers in Nutrition, displays how C. olitorius, besides being highly resistant to environmental stressors and requiring low fertilization to grow, shows an unaffected phenolic profile under stressful cultivation conditions. Moreover, the study highlights how C. olitorius leaves can be exploited as antioxidant compounds that can trigger a selective cytotoxicity against colorectal cancer cells, with no effects on healthy cells.
Congrats to Davide and Nicola for this important achievement!
Find out more using the following link: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2021.667812
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