Department of Pharmacology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
Biochem Pharmacol. 2012 Nov 15;84(10):1268-76. doi: 10.1016/j.bcp.2012.07.015. Epub 2012 Jul 27.
Phytochemicals and their synthetic derivatives are making a significant contribution in modern drug discovery programs by targeting several human diseases, including cancer. Most of these natural compounds are often multitargeted in nature, which is generally a very desirable property for cancer therapy, as carcinomas typically involve dysregulation of multiple genes and associated cell-signaling pathways at various stages of initiation, progression and metastasis. Additionally, these natural agents generally have lower side-effects, are readily available and hence are cost effective. One such natural compound is zerumbone, a cyclic eleven-membered sesquiterpene, isolated from the tropical plant Zingiber zerumbet Smith that has attracted great attention recently for its potent anticancer activities in several tumor models. This review summarizes the data based on various in vitro and in vivo studies related to the effects of zerumbone on numerous pivotal molecular targets in cancer and its reported chemopreventive/therapeutic effects in different models of cancer.
植物化学物质及其合成衍生物通过针对包括癌症在内的多种人类疾病，在现代药物发现计划中做出了重大贡献。这些天然化合物中的大多数通常具有多靶点特性，这对于癌症治疗通常是非常理想的，因为癌通常涉及在起始、进展和转移的各个阶段多个基因和相关细胞信号通路的失调。此外，这些天然药物通常副作用较小，易于获得，因此具有成本效益。其中一种天然化合物是姜烯，一种从热带植物姜黄属中分离出来的环状十一元倍半萜烯，最近因其在几种肿瘤模型中的强大抗癌活性而引起了极大的关注。这篇综述总结了基于各种体外和体内研究的数据，这些研究涉及姜烯对癌症中许多关键分子靶点的影响及其在不同癌症模型中的化学预防/治疗作用。
