Bioactive compounds are experiencing a growing
interest in wide range of applications: geo-medicine, plant
science, modern pharmacology, agrochemicals, cosmetics,
food industry, nano-bio-science... etc. This is a very
promising area in full development, which has resulted in
research works more and more numerous, designed to
diversify the resources of bioactive compounds and
improve their salvage pathways or synthesis.
Despite all this significant number of research in
different fields, the definition of bioactive compounds
remains ambiguous and unclear. A very few references give
a definition to the term "bioactive", and generally by a short
sentence which does not leave the closed field of research,
and thus limiting the generalization of these definitions.
This situation led us asking, for a long time, lots of
questions, but first and foremost: What is a bioactive
compound? To answer this question, we will, firstly,
discuss different definitions collected, to arrive in a second
time, to redraft a definition from the various concepts
discussed.