Raffinose Family Oligosaccharides: Friend or Foe for Human and Plant Health?

Raffinose family oligosaccharides (RFOs) are widespread across the plant kingdom, and
their concentrations are related to the environment, genotype, and harvest time. RFOs
are known to carry out many functions in plants and humans. In this paper, we provide a
comprehensive review of RFOs, including their beneficial and anti-nutritional properties.
RFOs are considered anti-nutritional factors since they cause flatulence in humans and
animals. Flatulence is the single most important factor that deters consumption and
utilization of legumes in human and animal diets. In plants, RFOs have been reported
to impart tolerance to heat, drought, cold, salinity, and disease resistance besides
regulating seed germination, vigor, and longevity. In humans, RFOs have beneficial
effects in the large intestine and have shown prebiotic potential by promoting the growth
of beneficial bacteria reducing pathogens and putrefactive bacteria present in the colon.
In addition to their prebiotic potential, RFOs have many other biological functions in
humans and animals, such as anti-allergic, anti-obesity, anti-diabetic, prevention of nonalcoholic
fatty liver disease, and cryoprotection. The wide-ranging applications of RFOs
make them useful in food, feed, cosmetics, health, pharmaceuticals, and plant stress
tolerance; therefore, we review the composition and diversity of RFOs, describe the
metabolism and genetics of RFOs, evaluate their role in plant and human health, with a
primary focus in grain legumes.