Hinokiflavone: Advances on Resources, Biosynthetic Pathways, Bioavailability, Bioactivity, and Pharmacology

Hinokiflavone is a biflavonoid compound with an ether linkage between the two connected apigenin units. Biflavonoids are divided into two classes, C–C and C–O–C types. C–C are represented by dimeric compounds like amentoflavone while C–O–C are represented by compounds like hinokiflavone, found in a variety of plants like Cupressaceae and Taxaceae families, Selaginella species, and several other plants like Platycladus orientalis and cashew. In this chapter, a comprehensive review of resources, biosynthetic pathways, bioavailability, bioactivity, and pharmacology of hinokiflavone are provided directly or indirectly to facilitate its current and future development. In direct approaches, hinokiflavone is discussed primarily while in indirect approaches, other flavonoids and biflavonoids are discussed to make the base for hinokiflavone development. Different extraction techniques and chemical synthesis of hinokiflavone are discussed. In addition, the biosynthetic pathways, bio-transformation, absorption, metabolism, and excretion of hinokiflavone are discussed. The overall in vivo and in vitro pharmacological outputs of hinokiflavone like anti-inflammatory, anticancer, antioxidant, antibacterial, antihypotensive activities, antigout disease, and anti-Alzheimer’s disease are discussed. Besides, hinokiflavone was discussed as pre-mRNA splicing modulator, which is valuable for treating different human pathologies like cancer and many more. Furthermore, their other perspective, patents, and toxicological safety are discussed. Keeping all the privileges of hinokiflavone in considerations, we can conclude that this compound deserves more attention and further research which can lead to its revolutionary therapeutic benefits for several human’s disease conditions.