scholarly journals POTENTIAL NATURAL PRODUCTS WITH ANTICANCER PROPERTIES AND THEIR APPLICATIONS

Author(s):  
BALABHASKAR R ◽  
RAJENDRA KUMAR A ◽  
SELVARAJAN S ◽  
FARIDHA A ◽  
GAYATHRI GUNALAN

Natural products continue to be a source for the discovery of drugs and drug leads even from ancient period. 80% of drug molecules have been obtained from either natural products or derivatives of the natural product. It has been found that the concept of a single drug for treating single disease may become outdated in the near future and the need of polyherbal formulations, as an alternate remedy is under investigation. Medicinal and aromatic plants contain biologically important phytochemicals, which have known curative properties. They are found as secondary metabolites in plants. Plants also contain certain other compounds that moderate the effects of the active ingredients. Medicinal and aromatic plants have their own contribution toward the treatment of both noncommunicable and communicable diseases. A survey done by the WHO indicates that a majority of the world population tends to use plants for treating diseases. Cancer, the second largest cause of death after cardiovascular disease accounts for about 3500 million people globally. Due to the serious side effects of synthetic chemopreventive agents, research is going onto investigate the nature derived chemopreventive agents. In addition to the plant-derived compounds, marine, and animal resources also play an important role as clinically beneficial anticancer agents with minimal or no toxicity. The best examples for plant-derived compounds include vincristine, vinblastine, irinotecan, etoposide, and paclitaxel; they have a different mode of action against cancer such as interaction with microtubules, inhibition of topoisomerases I or II, alkylation of DNA, and interference with tumor signal transduction. The natural products from marine sources such as bryostatin, squalamine exhibit a significant antimitotic, and anti-angiogenic activities. The benefits of various anticancer drugs derived from natural products are the fact that it can have its effect on cancer cells alone without harming healthy cells, which is unlikely to be the case with other conventional chemotherapeutics. In this review, various natural products and their anticancer properties have been discussed briefly.

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 691-698
Author(s):  
Vandana ◽  
Rajesh Lather ◽  
Sridevi Tallapragada ◽  
Gurnam Singh

Since thousands years back approximately around 900 BC, medicinal plants are considered as a source of many biomolecules with therapeutic potential. Herbal medicines are considered as safer, better, physiologically compatible and costeffective. The oldest evidence of medicinal and aromatic plants depicts that with the emergence of human civilization, plants have been considered as the main source to heal and cure various serious ailments. It has been proven that the secondary metabolites e.g. alkaloid, glycosides, flavonoides, steroids etc present in the medicinal plants possesses ability to prevent occurrence of some of the diseases, means medicinal plants acts as a “preventive medicine”. Medicinal plants have a paramount importance and a great interest due to its pharmaceutical, cosmetic and nutritional values. Some plants are also considered as an important source of nutrition and are known to have a variety of compounds with potential therapeutic properties. India is the principal repository of large number of medicinal and aromatic plants or we can say India is one of the rich mega-biodiversity countries of the world. Medicinal plants are “backbone” of traditional medicinal system (TMS). Crude drugs are usually dried parts of medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) such as roots, stems, wood, bark, seeds, fruits, flowers, leaves, rhizomes, whole plant etc. that form the essential raw material for the production of medicines in various systems of Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani, Tibatian, Tribal and Homeopathy. According to the survey of the World Health Organization (WHO), about 80% of the world population are using herbs and other traditional medicines for their primary healthcare and have established three kinds of herbal medicines: raw plant material, processed plant material, and herbal products. Now days, variety of available herbs are used throughout the world and they continue to promote good health. As the benefits from medicinal and aromatic plants are recognized, these plants will have a special role for humans in the future. The present review on medicinal and aromatic plants revealed similar combination of studies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sami A. Al-Harbi ◽  
Abdulrasheed O. Abdulrahman ◽  
Mazin A. Zamzami ◽  
Mohammad Imran Khan

Cancer as a disease continues to ravage the world population without regard to sex, age, and race. Due to the growing number of cases worldwide, cancer exerts a significant negative impact on global health and the economy. Interestingly, chemotherapy has been used over the years as a therapeutic intervention against cancer. However, high cost, resistance, and toxic by-effects to treatment have overshadowed some of its benefits. In recent times, efforts have been ongoing in searching for anticancer therapeutics of plant origin, focusing on polyphenols. Urolithins are secondary polyphenol metabolites derived from the gut microbial action on ellagitannins and ellagic acid-rich foods such as pomegranate, berries, and nuts. Urolithins are emerging as a new class of anticancer compounds that can mediate their cancer-preventive activities through cell cycle arrest, aromatase inhibition, induction of apoptosis, tumor suppression, promotion of autophagy, and senescence, transcriptional regulation of oncogenes, and growth factor receptors. In this review, we discussed the growing shreds of evidence supporting these secondary phenolic metabolites' anticancer properties. Furthermore, we have pointed out some of the future directions needed to establish urolithins as anticancer agents.


Author(s):  
Velmurugan Devadass ◽  
Pachiappan Raman ◽  
D. Gayathri

Introduction: In both developing and developed countries, cancer is among the leading causes of millions of deaths. The incidence of cancer is increasing due to environmental changes and modernization of life style. Lung and breast cancer deaths lead in number compared to other cancer deaths. Although the cause of cancer due to external factors like tobacco use, chemicals, radiation, infectious organisms and internal factors like immune conditions and genetic modification are known, the occurrence and deaths due to cancer cannot be controlled. Methods: It is expected that the incidence of cancer after two decades will increase by 70% and death rate will also increase by 50%, which is an alarming situation globally. Although synthetic compounds are being used in the control of cancer as chemopreventive agents, about 50% of these are related to natural products as the origin. There is an emerging evidence to show that in the past 50 years, natural products derived from plants and marine sources had beneficial effects in the treatment and prevention of cancer. Taxol, vincristine, vinblastine, cytarabine, eribulin mesylate and trabectidine are some of the anticancer compounds isolated from terrestrial and marine sources. Results: This review highlights mainly the role of natural compounds isolated from terrestrial and marine sources as anticancer agents through the docking of these compounds with the related macromolecular targets. Conclusion: Cell line studies for some of the compounds isolated from natural products are also reported.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 1071-1079
Author(s):  
Belgin Coşge Şenkal

Medicinal plants, which are used as drugs to prevent diseases, maintain health or cure diseases, take place in areas such as nutrition, cosmetics, body care, incense or religious ceremonies, while aromatic plants are used in different industrial areas to give fragrance and taste are used. Flora of Turkey has a rich plant diversity. Secondary metabolites such as essential oils, alkaloids, glycosides, saponins etc. are the most basic products of the industry directly or indirectly. The vast majority of medicinal and aromatic plants rich in secondary metabolites exhibit strong biological activity (antioxidant, antibacterial, etc.). Therefore, these secondary metabolites are widely used in the pharmaceutical industry. The most common and practical use of secondary metabolites, which are also used as natural insecticides, is in the form of herbal tea. In recent years, the more side effects of synthetic origin substances, especially the resistance of organisms against synthetic drugs used as antimicrobials, have increased the importance of natural herbal resources and medicinal plants carrying these substances. Therefore, there is no doubt that the demand for secondary metabolites, which are natural products, will increase in the future. Flora of Turkey is an important source for natural products which will be developed newly.


Planta Medica ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 79 (13) ◽  
Author(s):  
NS Abdel-Azim ◽  
KA Shams ◽  
MM El-Missery ◽  
SI Ismail ◽  
FM hammouda

2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-48
Author(s):  
Nina Ciocârlan

Abstract This work refers to the native species of genus Astragalus L. (A. dasyanthus, A. ponticus), Adonis L. (A. vernalis, A. wolgensis) and Digitalis L. (D. lanata, D. grandiflora). The plants are cultivated in the Botanical Garden of Moldova in the field collection of the medicinal and aromatic plants. Investigation includes propagation aspects, research into cultivation techniques and conservation measures. The biological particularities and the phenologic rhythm are also registered. The obtained data shows the ecological flexibility of species and the possibility of preserving them in culture.


2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 1671-1679
Author(s):  
Oliviu Grigore Pop ◽  
Angela Marculescu ◽  
Romulus Gruia

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document