Plants have been the target of a growing interest by the scientific community
in chemical and nutritional characterization studies, due to the presence of
bioactive compounds and their potential industrial use, namely in food and pharmaceutical
sectors. Different secondary metabolites found in plants ensure their survival
and reproduction. Non-alkaloids compounds are an important group of
secondary metabolites present in the plant kingdom, which have been widely studied
and aimed at their industrial application, namely in the pharmaceutical area. This
group of compounds has an important ecological function of protection; and in
addiction an excellent bioactive performance has been highlighted and exploited for
promising application in the pharmaceutical industry.
This chapter focuses on the characterization of different classes of non-alkaloid
nitrogen compounds: non-protein amino acids, cyanogenic glycosides compounds,
and glucosinolates. Its chemical and structural characteristics as well as its biosynthesis
and presence in plants will be presented. The bioactivities presented by each of
the classes will be equally focused as well as their applicability.
The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT,
Portugal) for financial support by national funds FCT/MCTES to CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020).
L. Barros thanks the national funding by FCT, P.I., through the institutional scientific employment
program-contract, and F.A. Fernandes and F. Mandim Ph.D. grant (SFRH/BD/145467/2019 and
SFRH/BD/146614/2019, respectively). C. Caleja thanks her contract through the project Healthy-
PETFOOD (POCI-01-0247-FEDER-047073) and Manuel Ayuso is grateful to the
LOCALNUTLEG project (PRIMA programme, Call 2020, Section 1 2021 Agrofood Value
Chain topic 1.3.1.) for his postdoctoral research grant.
