Traditional Chinese Medicine: A Treasured Natural Resource of Anticancer Drug Research and Development

Abstract

To discover and develop novel natural compounds, active ingredients, single herbs and combination formulas or prescriptions in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) with therapeutic selectivity that can preferentially kill cancer cells and inhibit the amplification of cancer without significant toxicity is an important area in cancer therapy. A lot of valuable TCMs were applied as alternative or complementary medicines in the United States and Europe. But these TCMs, as one of the main natural resources, were widely used to research and develop new drugs in Asia. In TCMs, some specific herbs, animals, minerals and combination formulas were recorded and exploited due to their active ingredients and specific natural compounds with antitumor activities. The article focused on the antitumor properties of natural compounds and combination formulas or prescriptions in TCMs, described its influence on tumor progression, angiogenesis, metastasis, and revealed its mechanisms of antitumor and inhibitory action. Among the nature compounds, triptolide, berberine, matrine, oxymatrine, kurarinone and deoxypodophyllotoxin (DPT) with specific molecular structures have been separated, purified, and evaluated their antitumor properties in vitro and in vivo. Cancer is a multifactorial and multistep disease, so the treatment effect of combination formulas and prescriptions in TCMs involving multi-targets and multi-signal pathways on tumor may be superior than that of agents targeting a single molecular target alone. Shi Quan Da Bu Tang and Yanshu injection, as well known combination formulas and prescriptions in TCMs, have shown an excellent therapeutic effect on cancer.

Barley grass extract causes apoptosis of cancer cells by increasing intracellular reactive oxygen species production

“…Furthermore, certain anti-cancer therapeutic agents that are chemically produced originate from herbal products and their chemical characteristics are modified (7,(12)(13)(14). Typically, patients prefer to take herbal products (15)(16)(17)(18); herbal products have historically been used as traditional medicines, such as traditional Chinese and Korean medicines, Kampo medicines and Ayurvedic medicine (13,14,19). Certain herbal products were demonstrated to treat cancer and/or reduce the side effects of cancer treatment (13,(15)(16)(17)(19)(20)(21).…”

Shikonin enhances Adriamycin antitumor effects by inhibiting efflux pumps in A549 cells

“…A number of previous studies have aimed to extract and screen the active components of traditional Chinese herbs in order to develop effective and relatively safe drugs for cancer treatment (16,17). Shikonin (SHK) is the major active ingredient isolated from the dried roots of Lithospermum erythrorhizon, and possesses a molecular weight of 288 kDa.…”

Tubeimoside-1 induces oxidative stress-mediated apoptosis and G0/G1 phase arrest in human prostate carcinoma cells in vitro

“…Traditional Chinese herbal medicine is a good source of cancer chemotherapeutic agents [10][11][12] . Tubeimoside-1 (TBMS1) is a naturally occurring triterpenoid saponin that was isolated from Bolbostemma paniculatum (Maxim.)…”