Research progress in natural tyrosinase inhibitors:types and structure-activity relationships

Tyrosinase widely presents and that is a key enzyme in the organism, which plays important role in synthesis of melanin. However, excessive abnormal melanin will bring many adverse effects. Application of tyrosinase inhibitors has been one of the most popular and desirable strategies to control the excessive abnormal melanin in pharmaceutical, food and cosmetics. In this review, natural tyrosinase inhibitors were systematically summarized and their structure- activity relationships were also discussed, which would contribute to the future development of tyrosinase inhibitors.