State of the Art of the specie Persea americana Mill (avocado)

The avocado (Persea americana Mill) is an edible fruit of economic importance of the Lauraceae Family. It is native to Central America and the Caribbean but its cultivation has spread to other tropical and subtropical regions of the planet. This work summarizes information related to research on the biological properties of this species and discusses relevant aspects of its use as insecticide and the possibility of performing nanoformulations from its oils and extracts. The objective of the research was to evaluate the state of the art on the biological properties of Persea americana Mill (avocado) from 1900 to 2019. The methodology used consisted of consulting international databases such as HighWire, DOAJ, EBSCO, Scielo, Scopus, Chemical abstract, Medline, PudMed, and Pharmaceutical Abstract. The results showed that the phytochemistry of Persea americanaca Mill has been widely studied for leaves, fruit and seeds. The chemical composition of this species is characterized by different groups of metabolites, which can be divided into various derivatives that contain furan ring, glycosides, terpenoids, flavonoids and coumarins. The main family of phenolic compounds found in avocado peels and seeds are (epi) catechin derivatives. A large variety of pharmacological activities have been reported for the different organs (leaves, fruits, seeds and bark) of P. americana Mill. as hypocholesterolemic, hypotensive, antiinflammatory, hypoglycaemic, analgesic, antioxidant, anticonvulsant, cicatrizant and anticancer. Although the use as an insecticide of Persea americana extracts has been demonstrated, no nanoformulation based on these extracts used to fight insects was found in the literature review.