Wild Rue (Peganum harmala), an Extraordinary Source of Natural Products and Pharmacological Benefits

Peganum harmala is a perennial herbaceous, glabrous plant mainly found in North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Its seeds showed that alkaloids belonging to the β-carboline family such as harmaline, harmine, harman, harmalol, and harmol which are responsible for a wide range of pharmacological impacts. The main components from its seeds are tetradecane, dodecane, hexadecane, methyl dodecanoate, heptadecane, 2-octanol benzoate, methyl tetradecanoate, octadecane, 2,6,10,14-tetramethyl pentadecane, 2,6,10,14-tetramethyl hexadecane, methyl hexadecanoate, nonadecane, eicosane, dibutyl phthalate, henicosane, methyl oleate, harmine, docosane, and tricosane. The current searching was done by the keywords in main indexing systems including Scopus, Pub/Med/MEDLINE, and Institute for Scientific Information Web of Science as well as the search engine of Google Scholar. The most important pharmacological benefits of Peganum harmala are anti-tumor, anti-cholinesterase, antiparasitic effects, angiogenesis, cytotoxicity and anti-inflammatory effects, anti-cancer, anti-tumor, antioxidant, cerebroprotective, antibacterial, hypoglycemis and pesticide effects. Due to its wonderful pharmacological characteristics, it is a high potential medicinal herb, and it can be suggested to other parts of the world.