Cruciferous vegetables

Cruciferous vegetables are vegetables of the family Brassicaceae (also called Cruciferae) with many genera, species, and cultivars being raised for food production such as cauliflower, cabbage, garden cress, bok choy, broccoli, brussels sprouts and similar green leaf vegetables. The family takes its alternate name (Cruciferae, New Latin for "cross-bearing") from the shape of their flowers, whose four petals resemble a cross.

Ten of the most common cruciferous vegetables eaten by people, known colloquially in North America as cole crops and in Britain and Ireland as "brassicas", are in a single species (Brassica oleracea); they are not distinguished from one another taxonomically, only by horticultural category of cultivar groups. Numerous other genera and species in the family are also edible. Cruciferous vegetables are one of the dominant food crops worldwide. They are high in vitamin C and soluble fiber and contain multiple nutrients and .

Extensive selective breeding has produced a large variety of cultivars, especially within the genus Brassica. One description of genetic factors involved in the breeding of Brassica species is the Triangle of U.

Cruciferous vegetables contain glucosinolates which are under basic research for their potential properties of affecting some types of cancer. Glucosinolates are hydrolyzed to isothiocyanates (ITCs) by the action of myrosinase. ITCs, possibly a bioactive component in cruciferous vegetables, are being investigated for their chemopreventive and chemotherapeutic effects. As one example in laboratory research, ITCs such as phenethyl isothiocyanate reduced levels of the oncoprotein MCL1. Other in vitro research indicates ITCs may affect levels of the BCR-ABL fusion protein, the oncoprotein affecting mechanisms of leukemia.

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