The Third Clinical Medical College of China Three Gorges University, Gezhouba Central Hospital of Sinopharm, Yichang, 443002, Hubei, China.
Curr Top Med Chem. 2022;22(17):1442-1456. doi: 10.2174/1568026622666220330011047.
Cancer is claimed as a prevalent cause of mortality throughout the world. Conventional chemotherapy plays a pivotal role in the treatment of cancers, but multidrug resistance has already become one of the major impediments to efficacious cancer therapy, creating a great demand for the development of novel anticancer drugs. Steroidal saponins, abundantly found in nature, possess extensive structural variability, and some naturally occurring steroidal saponins exhibit profound anticancer properties through a variety of pathways. Hence, naturally occurring steroidal saponins are powerful lead compounds/candidates in the development of novel therapeutic agents. This review article described the recent progress of naturally occurring steroidal saponins as potential anticancer agents, and the mechanisms of action were also discussed, covering articles published between 2017 and 2021.
癌症被认为是全球范围内普遍存在的死亡原因。传统化疗在癌症治疗中起着关键作用，但多药耐药性已经成为有效癌症治疗的主要障碍之一，因此迫切需要开发新型抗癌药物。甾体皂苷在自然界中大量存在，具有广泛的结构变异性，一些天然甾体皂苷通过多种途径表现出显著的抗癌特性。因此，天然甾体皂苷是开发新型治疗剂的有效先导化合物/候选物。本文综述了近年来天然甾体皂苷作为潜在抗癌药物的研究进展，并讨论了其作用机制，涵盖了 2017 年至 2021 年期间发表的文章。
