Department of Immunology, Amala Cancer Research Centre, Amala Nagar, Thrissur, Kerala, India.
Pharm Biol. 2011 Oct;49(10):995-1007. doi: 10.3109/13880209.2011.559476.
Cancer is a major public health problem in India and many other parts of the world. Its two main characteristics are uncontrolled cell growth and metastasis. Natural products represent a rich source of compounds that have found many applications in various fields of medicines and therapy including cancer therapy. Effective ingredients in several plant-derived medicinal extracts are terpenoid compounds and many terpenes have biological activities and are used for the treatment of human diseases.
This review attempted to collect all available published scientific literature of eight naturally occurring terpenoids and their effect on inhibition of tumor progression.
The present review is about eight potent naturally occurring terpenoids that have been studied for their pharmacological properties in our lab and this review includes 130 references compiled from all major databases.
Literature survey revealed that triterpenoids, such as glycyrrhizic acid, ursolic acid, oleanolic acid, and nomilin, the diterpene andrographolide, and the monoterpenoids like limonene and perillic acid had shown immunomodulatory and antitumor activities. All of them could induce apoptosis in various cancer cells by activating various proapoptotic signaling cascades. Many of these terpenoids found to inhibit metastatic progression and tumor-induced angiogenesis. The molecular mechanisms that involved in these activities include inhibition of various oncogenic and anti-apoptotic signaling pathways and suppression or nuclear translocation of various transcription factors including nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB).
The chemopreventive and chemoprotective effects of these compounds point toward their possible role in modern anticancer therapies.
癌症是印度和世界许多其他地区的一个主要公共卫生问题。它的两个主要特征是不受控制的细胞生长和转移。天然产物是化合物的丰富来源，这些化合物在包括癌症治疗在内的各种医学和治疗领域都有广泛的应用。几种植物衍生药用提取物中的有效成分是萜类化合物，许多萜类化合物具有生物活性，用于治疗人类疾病。
本综述试图收集所有已发表的关于八种天然萜类化合物及其抑制肿瘤进展作用的可用科学文献。
本综述是关于八种具有潜在作用的天然萜类化合物，这些化合物在我们实验室中因其药理学特性而被研究过，本综述包括从所有主要数据库中编译的 130 篇参考文献。
文献调查显示，三萜类化合物，如甘草酸、熊果酸、齐墩果酸和诺米林、二萜类化合物穿心莲内酯和单萜类化合物如柠檬烯和胡椒酸，具有免疫调节和抗肿瘤活性。它们都可以通过激活各种促凋亡信号级联反应，在各种癌细胞中诱导细胞凋亡。许多这些萜类化合物被发现抑制转移进展和肿瘤诱导的血管生成。涉及这些活性的分子机制包括抑制各种致癌和抗凋亡信号通路以及抑制或核易位各种转录因子，包括核因子 kappa B（NF-κB）。
这些化合物的化学预防和化学保护作用表明它们可能在现代癌症治疗中发挥作用。
