Lotus – A Source of Food and Medicine: Current Status and Future Perspectives in Context of the Seed Proteomics

Nelumbo nucifera (Gaertn.), commonly known as the lotus, is an aquatic plant native to India and presently consumed as food, mainly in China and Japan. In addition to its use as food, the lotus plant is also widely used in Indian and Chinese traditional medicine. Extracts from different parts of the lotus plant have been reported to show several biological activities, such as antioxidant, free radical scavenging, anti-inflammatory, and immuno-modulatory activities. Despite this, little work has been done in isolating and identifying the proteins responsible for these activities. To date, there is no report on systematic protein analysis of the lotus plant. In this review, we discuss the medicinal value of the lotus plant and reported works on its biological activities. We also present a proteomics approach for systematic investigation of the lotus seed proteome. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/ijls.v7i1.6394 International Journal of Life Sciences 7(1): 2013; 1-5