ReviewMolecules (Basel, Switzerland)2015
Melatonin as a Potent and Inducible Endogenous Antioxidant: Synthesis and Metabolism.
Review in Molecules (Basel, Switzerland), 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 302 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
302 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 696 citations in OpenAlex.
- Physiological relevance of autocrine melatonin signaling in pineal and extrapineal sites: a systematic review.Function (Oxford, England) · 2026Pooled it
- The effects of antioxidant supplementation on pain, oxidative stress markers, and clinical pregnancy rate in women with endometriosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Pooled it
- Effect of melatonin supplementation on cardiometabolic risk factors, oxidative stress and hormonal profile in PCOS patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials.Journal of ovarian research · 2024Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Pooled it
- The Effects of Melatonin Supplementation on Professional Football Player Performance: A Systematic Review.Nutrients · 2023Pooled it
- A phase II, single-center, double-blind, randomized placebo-controlled trial to explore the efficacy and safety of intravenous melatonin in surgical patients with severe sepsis admitted to the intensive care unit.Journal of pineal research · 2023Trial
- Melatonin Improves Quality of Repeated-Poor and Frozen-Thawed Embryos in Human, a Prospective Clinical Trial.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2022Trial
- Randomized placebo-controlled phase II trial of high-dose melatonin mucoadhesive oral gel for the prevention and treatment of oral mucositis in patients with head and neck cancer undergoing radiation therapy concurrent with systemic treatment.Clinical & translational oncology : official publication of the Federation of Spanish Oncology Societies and of the National Cancer Institute of Mexico · 2021Trial
- Article
- Lower 24-hour urinary 6-sulfatoxymelatonin and exploratory bile-acid and microbiome associations in adults with dyslipidemia: a prospectively enrolled cross-sectional study.Annals of medicine · 2026Article
- Pharmacological melatonin induces mitochondrial dysfunction and alters extracellular nucleotide metabolism and CD39/CD73 expression in human melanoma cells.Purinergic signalling · 2026Article
- Light-Dependent Regulation of Drought Tolerance in Cucumber Plants by Melatonin.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Effects of Melatonin in Women with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Undergoing ART: A Systematic Review.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Indole-Derived Compounds as Redox-Modulators: Antioxidant Mechanisms in Neuronal Protection.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Review
- Melatonin Modulates Macrophage Polarization and Immunometabolic Responses in the Colostrum of Obese Mothers.Metabolites · 2026Article
- Review
- Chronic Light-Induced Desynchronosis as a Model of Accelerated Metabolic Aging in Rats: Prevention and Correction by Exogenous Melatonin.Biomedicines · 2026Article
- Inflammation Disrupts Ganglioside Expression during Early Embryonic Development in Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) Mice: Protective Effects of Melatonin.Development & reproduction · 2026Review
242 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Melatonin is a tryptophan-derived molecule with pleiotropic activities. It is present in almost all or all organisms. Its synthetic pathway depends on the species in which it is measured. For example, the tryptophan to melatonin pathway differs in plants and animals. It is speculated that the melatonin synthetic machinery in eukaryotes was inherited from bacteria as a result of endosymbiosis. However, melatonin's synthetic mechanisms in microorganisms are currently unknown. Melatonin metabolism is highly complex with these enzymatic processes having evolved from cytochrome C. In addition to its enzymatic degradation, melatonin is metabolized via pseudoenzymatic and free radical interactive processes. The metabolic products of these processes overlap and it is often difficult to determine which process is dominant. However, under oxidative stress, the free radical interactive pathway may be featured over the others. Because of the complexity of the melatonin degradative processes, it is expected that additional novel melatonin metabolites will be identified in future investigations. The original and primary function of melatonin in early life forms such as in unicellular organisms was as a free radical scavenger and antioxidant. During evolution, melatonin was selected as a signaling molecule to transduce the environmental photoperiodic information into an endocrine message in multicellular organisms and for other purposes as well. As an antioxidant, melatonin exhibits several unique features which differ from the classic antioxidants. These include its cascade reaction with free radicals and its capacity to be induced under moderate oxidative stress. These features make melatonin a potent endogenously-occurring antioxidant that protects organisms from catastrophic oxidative stress.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.