H OH metabolites OH Review A Metabolic Perspective and Opportunities in Pharmacologically Important Safflower Vimalraj Mani 1, Seon-Kyeong Lee 1, Yunsoo Yeo 1 and Bum-Soo Hahn 2,* 1 Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Jeonju 54874, Korea;
[email protected] (V.M.);
[email protected] (S.-K.L.);
[email protected] (Y.Y.) 2 National Agrobiodiversity Center, National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, RDA, Jeonju 54874, Korea * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +82-63-238-4930 Received: 24 May 2020; Accepted: 15 June 2020; Published: 17 June 2020 Abstract: Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) has long been grown as a crop due to its commercial utility as oil, animal feed, and pharmacologically significant secondary metabolites. The integration of omics approaches, including genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, and proteomics datasets, has provided more comprehensive knowledge of the chemical composition of crop plants for multiple applications. Knowledge of a metabolome of plant is crucial to optimize the evolution of crop traits, improve crop yields and quality, and ensure nutritional and health factors that provide the opportunity to produce functional food or feedstuffs. Safflower contains numerous chemical components that possess many pharmacological activities including central nervous, cardiac, vascular, anticoagulant, reproductive, gastrointestinal, antioxidant, hypolipidemic, and metabolic activities, providing many other human health benefits. In addition to classical metabolite studies, this review focuses on several metabolite-based working techniques and updates to provide a summary of the current medical applications of safflower. Keywords: safflower; crop; metabolites; function; pharmacological compounds 1. Introduction The genus Carthamus is a diverse group of plants within the family Compositae, or Asteraceae, comprising 15 species of east Mediterranean origin.