Magnolol as a Potential Anticancer Agent: A Proposed Mechanistic Insight

Abstract

Cancer is a serious disease with high mortality and morbidity worldwide. Natural products have served as a major source for developing new anticancer drugs during recent decades. Magnolol, a representative natural phenolic lignan isolated from Magnolia officinali, has attracted considerable attention for its anticancer properties in recent years. Accumulating preclinical studies have demonstrated the tremendous therapeutic potential of magnolol via a wide range of pharmacological mechanisms against cancer. In this review, we summarized the latest advances in preclinical studies investigating anticancer properties of magnolol and described the important signaling pathways explaining its underlying mechanisms. Magnolol was capable of inhibiting cancer growth and metastasis against various cancer types. Magnolol exerted anticancer effects through inhibiting proliferation, inducing cell cycle arrest, provoking apoptosis, restraining migration and invasion, and suppressing angiogenesis. Multiple signaling pathways were also involved in the pharmacological actions of magnolol against cancer, such as PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling, MAPK signaling and NF-κB signaling. Based on this existing evidence summarized in the review, we have conclusively confirmed magnolol had a multi-target anticancer effect against heterogeneous cancer disease. It is promising to develop magnolol as a drug candidate for cancer therapy in the future.

Geographical Distribution, Chemical Constituents, and Activity Profile of Magnolia

“…(2000 to 3300 m) (Ong et al, 2020) (Figure 2). Among many other types of plants, magnolias can be planted effectively depending on the conditions they require to flourish (Wang et al, 2022).…”

“…Dung and his Coworkers have previously documented the chemical compositions of essential oils derived from M. hypolampra leaves, trunk, bark, fruit pulp, and fruit kernels cultivated in Vietnam (Wang et al, 2022). The leaf oil of M. hypolampra (syn.…”

Targeting peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor γ proteasomal degradation by magnolol is a potential avenue for adipogenesis‐mediated metabolic homeostasis

“…Remarkably, magnolol, a natural component from magnolia bark [23], stood out as a PPARγ stabilizer without side effects. Magnolol has been found to be beneficial for systemic health, such as reducing hyperglycemia, decreasing hyperlipidemia, and being anticancer [24][25][26]. Previous reports have also suggested a protective function of magnolol on insulin resistance by enhancing adipogenesis, although the mechanism was not illuminated [27,28].…”

“…Previous reports have also suggested a protective function of magnolol on insulin resistance by enhancing adipogenesis, although the mechanism was not illuminated [27,28]. The multifaceted pharmacological effects of magnolol involve the regulation of phosphoinositide-3-kinase/Akt serine/threonine kinase 1 (Akt), mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), and nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) pathways [24][25][26]. However, the regulatory mechanism of PPARγ by magnolol is not illustrated yet, which is critical for improved medicine development.…”

Synthesis, anti-aging and mechanism of magnolol derivatives

“…Magnolol (M) is a natural active monomer containing allyl bisphenol isolated from Houpoea officinalis ( Tomita et al, 1968 ). Its biological activities are various, including antioxidant ( Subramaniyan et al, 2019 ), antibacterial ( Liu et al, 2021a ; Liu et al, 2021b ), anti-inflammatory ( Zhou et al, 2019 ), and anti-tumor ( Wang et al, 2022 ). Magnolol is a major component of the antiaging and antioxidant properties of Houpoea officinalis ( Zhang et al, 2019 ).…”