Anti-Cancer Activities of Natural Products

Background

Human beings have explored various plant species for curing illness and improving health. (Petrovska, 2012) This way, many natural products, including flavonoids, carotenoids, alkaloids, phenolics, etc., have been discovered. These compounds have a wide range of medicinal properties, including antitumor activity. (Cosme et al., 2020; Linnewiel-Hermoni et al., 2015; Habli et al., 2017) Since the most common cancer therapies not only provide limited treatment advantages but also result in severe side effects, the development of new anticancer drugs without toxicity (like chemotherapy, for example) and unaffected by the common mechanism of chemoresistance is highly desirable. Natural products are getting tremendous attention for application in cancer treatment. For the past several decades, natural products have been proven to be an important source of anticancer drugs. More than half of the anticancer drugs are natural products or natural product derivatives. (Newman et al., 2007; Cragg et al., 2009) In fact, plants have proved to be an excellent source of materials for isolating anticancer drugs. For example, vinca alkaloids were originally isolated from the plant Madagascar periwinkle. (Amin et al., 2009) Paclitaxel was initially isolated from the bark of Pacific yew. (Amin et al., 2009) Camptothecin was extracted from the bark and stem of Camptotheca acuminate. (Cragg et al., 2004) Many plant-derived anticancer drugs are used singly or in combination with other drugs. For example, vinblastine is commonly used in combination with doxorubicin, bleomycin, and dacarbazine. This combination is used as the first line of treatment option for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. (Meyer et al., 2012) Taxanes are used singly or in combination for early-stage or metastatic breast cancer.