Cargando…

Overview of Major Classes of Plant-Derived Anticancer Drugs

Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide. Conventional cancer therapies cause serious side effects and, at best, merely extend the patient’s lifespan by a few years. Cancer control may therefore benefit from the potential that resides in alternative therapies. The demand to utilize alte...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Amin, Amr, Gali-Muhtasib, Hala, Ocker, Matthias, Schneider-Stock, Regine
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Master Publishing Group 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3614754/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23675107
_version_ 1782264908223610880
author Amin, Amr
Gali-Muhtasib, Hala
Ocker, Matthias
Schneider-Stock, Regine
author_facet Amin, Amr
Gali-Muhtasib, Hala
Ocker, Matthias
Schneider-Stock, Regine
author_sort Amin, Amr
collection PubMed
description Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide. Conventional cancer therapies cause serious side effects and, at best, merely extend the patient’s lifespan by a few years. Cancer control may therefore benefit from the potential that resides in alternative therapies. The demand to utilize alternative concepts or approaches to the treatment of cancer is therefore escalating. There is compelling evidence from epidemiological and experimental studies that highlight the importance of compounds derived from plants “phytochemicals” to reduce the risk of colon cancer and inhibit the development and spread of tumors in experimental animals. More than 25% of drugs used during the last 20 years are directly derived from plants, while the other 25% are chemically altered natural products. Still, only 5-15% of the approximately 250,000 higher plants have ever been investigated for bioactive compounds. The advantage of using such compounds for cancer treatment is their relatively non-toxic nature and availability in an ingestive form. An ideal phytochemical is one that possesses anti-tumor properties with minimal toxicity and has a defined mechanism of action. As compounds that target specific signaling pathways are identified, researchers can envisage novel therapeutic approaches as well as a better understanding of the pathways involved in disease progression. Here, we focus on 4 classes of natural anticancer drugs: methyltransferase inhibitors, DNA damaging/pro-oxidant drugs, HDAC inhibitors (HDACi), and mitotic disrupters, and we will focus on the mode of action for one promising example per group.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-3614754
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2009
publisher Master Publishing Group
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-36147542013-05-01 Overview of Major Classes of Plant-Derived Anticancer Drugs Amin, Amr Gali-Muhtasib, Hala Ocker, Matthias Schneider-Stock, Regine Int J Biomed Sci Article Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide. Conventional cancer therapies cause serious side effects and, at best, merely extend the patient’s lifespan by a few years. Cancer control may therefore benefit from the potential that resides in alternative therapies. The demand to utilize alternative concepts or approaches to the treatment of cancer is therefore escalating. There is compelling evidence from epidemiological and experimental studies that highlight the importance of compounds derived from plants “phytochemicals” to reduce the risk of colon cancer and inhibit the development and spread of tumors in experimental animals. More than 25% of drugs used during the last 20 years are directly derived from plants, while the other 25% are chemically altered natural products. Still, only 5-15% of the approximately 250,000 higher plants have ever been investigated for bioactive compounds. The advantage of using such compounds for cancer treatment is their relatively non-toxic nature and availability in an ingestive form. An ideal phytochemical is one that possesses anti-tumor properties with minimal toxicity and has a defined mechanism of action. As compounds that target specific signaling pathways are identified, researchers can envisage novel therapeutic approaches as well as a better understanding of the pathways involved in disease progression. Here, we focus on 4 classes of natural anticancer drugs: methyltransferase inhibitors, DNA damaging/pro-oxidant drugs, HDAC inhibitors (HDACi), and mitotic disrupters, and we will focus on the mode of action for one promising example per group. Master Publishing Group 2009-03 /pmc/articles/PMC3614754/ /pubmed/23675107 Text en © Amr Amin et al. Licensee Master Publishing Group http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Article
Amin, Amr
Gali-Muhtasib, Hala
Ocker, Matthias
Schneider-Stock, Regine
Overview of Major Classes of Plant-Derived Anticancer Drugs
title Overview of Major Classes of Plant-Derived Anticancer Drugs
title_full Overview of Major Classes of Plant-Derived Anticancer Drugs
title_fullStr Overview of Major Classes of Plant-Derived Anticancer Drugs
title_full_unstemmed Overview of Major Classes of Plant-Derived Anticancer Drugs
title_short Overview of Major Classes of Plant-Derived Anticancer Drugs
title_sort overview of major classes of plant-derived anticancer drugs
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3614754/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23675107
work_keys_str_mv AT aminamr overviewofmajorclassesofplantderivedanticancerdrugs
AT galimuhtasibhala overviewofmajorclassesofplantderivedanticancerdrugs
AT ockermatthias overviewofmajorclassesofplantderivedanticancerdrugs
AT schneiderstockregine overviewofmajorclassesofplantderivedanticancerdrugs