Abstract

Plants have always gained importance because of their medicinal attribute leading to the development of a dedicated branch of science. Olea europaea L. is one such plant which has a special mention in medicinal science. This review focuses on the various pharmacological properties of O. europaea L., particularly its anticancer and anti-inflammatory activities. For the review study, various search engines were used, such as Google Scholar, Science Direct, Pubmed, Academia, Springer, etc.About 129 research articles were reviewed up to 2024 and it was concluded that OE fruits have good numbers of valuable constituents contributing to biological activity like anticancer property where triterpene compounds named hydroxytyrosol, oleuropein, erythrodiol, oleacein and oleocanthal showed significant antiproliferative activity along with apoptosis and angiopreventive activity on cancer cells. Also, Anti-inflammatory and antinociceptive properties has been equally exhibited by the plant; the constituents responsible were maslinic acid, ursolic acid, oleuropein, and hydroxytyrosol mostly present in n-hexane extract of O. europaea fruits. Hence, it could be concluded that O. europaea has effective molecules which could be chemically synthesized to get effective therapeutic medicine for cancer treatment.

Keywords: Olea europaea, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, hydroxytyrosol, oleuropein