Plants belonging to the genus Arum are being used for nutritional and medicinal purposes for many centuries, despite their toxicity. Few subspecies of this genus were widely investigated by modern research, mainly for potential therapeutic goals and drug discovery. Other subspecies were never studied by current research despite the fact that some of them have known and well documented traditional medicinal and other uses. In this review article, we will present the traditional uses of this plant genus and summarize the published results of modern medicinal and other studies of these plants. Special attention will be drawn to effective, natural products that were isolated from these plants. The toxicity of the plants will be discussed extensively.
Key words: Arum, alkaloids, toxicity, anticancer, antibacterial, volatile amines
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