Anticancer Potential of Flavonoids: An Overview with an Emphasis on Tangeretin

Abstract

Natural compounds with pharmacological activity, flavonoids have been the subject of an exponential increase in studies in the field of scientific research focused on therapeutic purposes due to their bioactive properties, such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-aging, antibacterial, antiviral, neuroprotective, radioprotective, and antitumor activities. The biological potential of flavonoids, added to their bioavailability, cost-effectiveness, and minimal side effects, direct them as promising cytotoxic anticancer compounds in the optimization of therapies and the search for new drugs in the treatment of cancer, since some extensively antineoplastic therapeutic approaches have become less effective due to tumor resistance to drugs commonly used in chemotherapy. In this review, we emphasize the antitumor properties of tangeretin, a flavonoid found in citrus fruits that has shown activity against some hallmarks of cancer in several types of cancerous cell lines, such as antiproliferative, apoptotic, anti-inflammatory, anti-metastatic, anti-angiogenic, antioxidant, regulatory expression of tumor-suppressor genes, and epigenetic modulation.

Brine Shrimp Bioactivity and Cytotoxic Potential of Irvingia gabonensis (Aubry-Lecomte ex O’Rorke) Baill Seed

“…Flavonoids are celebrated for their robust antioxidant activity, which plays a pivotal role in their anticancer properties by neutralizing free radicals, mitigating oxidative stress, and fostering cell survival (12). These compounds excel in scavenging free radicals and curtailing oxidative stress, thus safeguarding cells from DNA damage and enhancing cell survival (13)(14)(15)(16). Conversely, terpenoids have shown a broad spectrum of biological activities, including cytotoxicity against cancer cells through various mechanisms, such as hindering cell cycle progression, prompting apoptosis, and disturbing cellular signaling pathways (17,18).…”

Anti-Proliferative and Cytoprotective Activity of Ethylenediurea Derivatives with Alkyl and Oxygen-containing Groups as Substituents

“…Plant-isolated compounds [1], such as flavonoids [2][3][4] and phytohormones, as well as their synthetic analogs [5][6][7][8][9] are considered to be very promising as potential anti-cancer agents.…”

Antimicrobial Activity of Dimeric Flavonoids

“…Flavonoids were described in the literature as processing anti-allergic [22][23][24][25], anti-inflammatory [25][26][27][28][29][30], immunomodulatory [31][32][33], antitumor [33][34][35][36] and antimicrobial [15,21,[37][38][39][40][41] properties, which are the reasons explaining their great interest in the food, pharmaceutical and medical industries. Their toxicity levels are greatly reduced and are therefore currently critical for the development of new medicines [11,13,21,[42][43][44].…”