Synthesis of Psoralidin derivatives and their anticancer activity: First synthesis of Lespeflorin I1

Comprehensive Review on Herbal Medicine: Emphasis on Current Therapy and Role of Phytoconstituents for Cancer Treatment

INTRODUCTION

Cancer poses a significant public health challenge in both developed and developing nations, with a rising global incidence of patients facing the threat of death due to abnormal cell proliferation.

AIM

Review explores the utilization of different parts of herbal medicinal plants and their active pharmaceutical constituents in the prevention and treatment of various types of cancer.

METHODOLOGY

Various anticancer medicinal plants have been identified, demonstrating their therapeutic effects by inhibiting cancer-stimulating enzymes and hormones, activating DNA repair processes, boosting the synthesis of protective stimulants, reducing the formation of free radicals, and enhancing individual immunity. Data for this study were gathered from diverse online bibliographic and databases, including Google, Google Scholar, Mendeley, Springer Link, Research Gate, and PubMed.

RESULT

Herbal drugs have a huge contribution to the inhibition of the progression of cancer.A large volume of clinical studies has reported the beneficial effects of herbal medicines on the survival, immune modulation, and quality of life (QOL) of cancer patients, when these herbal medicines are used in combination with conventional therapeutics.

CONCLUSION

The latest medicines for the clinical purpose (Above 50 %) are derived from herbal products. Furthermore, combination of these herbs with nanotechnology shows promise in treating specific carcinomas.

Discovery of a CB2 and 5-HT1A receptor dual agonist for the treatment of depression and anxiety

Cannabinoid CB2R agonists have gained considerable attention as potential novel therapies for psychiatric disorders due to their non-psychoactive nature, in contrast to CB1R agonists. In this study, we employed molecular docking to design and synthesize 23 derivatives of cannabidiol (CBD) with the aim of discovering potent CB2R agonists rather than CB2R antagonists or inverse agonists. Structure-activity relationship (SAR) investigations highlighted the critical importance of the amide group at the C-3' site and the cycloalkyl group at the C-4' site for CB2R activation. Interestingly, three CBD derivatives, namely 2o, 6g, and 6h, exhibited substantial partial agonistic activity towards the CB2 receptor, in contrast to the inverse agonistic property of CBD. Among these, 2o acted as a CB2R and 5-HT1AR dual agonist, albeit with some undesired antagonist activity for CB1R. It demonstrated significant CB2R partial agonism while maintaining a level of 5-HT1AR agonistic and CB1R antagonistic activity similar to CBD. Pharmacokinetic experiments confirmed that 2o possesses favorable pharmacokinetic properties. Behavioral studies further revealed that 2o elicits significant antidepressant-like and anxiolytic-like effects while maintaining a good safety profile.

Flavonoids as promising molecules in the cancer therapy: An insight

Cancer continues to increase global morbidity and mortality rates. Despite substantial progress in the development of various chemically synthesized anti-cancer drugs, the poor prognosis of the disease still remains a big challenge. The most common drawback of conventional cancer therapies is the emergence of drug resistance eventually leading to the discontinuation of chemotherapy. Moreover, advanced target-specific therapies including immunotherapy and stem cell therapy are expensive enough and are unaffordable for most patients in poorer nations. Therefore, alternative and cheaper therapeutic strategies are needed to complement the current cancer treatment approaches. Phytochemicals are bioactive compounds produced naturally by plants and have great potential in human health and disease. These compounds possess antiproliferative, anti-oxidant, and immunomodulatory properties. Among the phytochemicals, flavonoids are very effective in treating a wide range of diseases from cardiovascular diseases and immunological disorders to cancer. They scavenge reactive oxygen species (ROS), inhibit cancer metastasis, modulate the immune system and induce apoptotic or autophagic cell death in cancers. This review will discuss the potential of various phytochemicals particularly flavonoids in attempts to target various cancers.

Naturally occurring coumestans from plants, their biological activities and therapeutic effects on human diseases

Naturally occurring coumestans are known as a collection of plant-derived polycyclic aromatic secondary metabolites which are characterized by the presence of an oxygen heterocyclic four-ring system comprising a coumarin moiety and a benzofuran moiety sharing a C˭C bond. Recently, there is an increasing attention in excavating the medicinal potential of coumestans, particularly coumestrol, wedelolactone, psoralidin and glycyrol, in a variety of diseases. This review is a comprehensive inventory of the chemical structures of coumestans isolated from various plant sources during the period of 1956-2020, together with their reported biological activities. 120 molecules were collected and further classified as coumestans containing core skeleton, dimethylpyranocoumestans, furanocoumestans, O-glycosylated coumestans and others, which showed a wide range of pharmacological activities including estrogenic, anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, anti-osteoporotic, organ protective, neuroprotective, anti-diabetic and anti-obesity, antimicrobial, immunosuppressive, antioxidant and skin-protective activities. Furthermore, this review focuses on the counteraction of coumestans against bone diseases and organ damages, and the involved molecular mechanisms, which could provide important information to better understand the medicinal values of these compounds. This review is intended to be instructive for the rational design and development of less toxic and more effective drugs with a coumestan scaffold.

Nanosponges Encapsulated Phytochemicals for Targeting Cancer: A Review

Cancer is the most ruinous disease globally. Natural products have impressive characteristics, such as exceptional chemical versatility, chemical and biological properties of macromolecular specificity and less toxicity which make them good leads in finding novel drugs. The phytochemicals not only help to prevent but also treat chronic cancerous conditions. The present review attempts to put forth some selected anticancer phytochemicals that had reported omics characteristic and specifically suppressed cancer with in vitro and in vivo activity. Certain issues pertaining to anticancer phytochemicals like delivery to target site in the body and achieving controlled release in order to prevent overdoses have been a major concern for medical researchers worldwide. The most conventional chemotherapy protocols for the treatment of cancer lead to adverse effects that limit biological efficacy and compromise patient outcomes. In order to defeat incompetency of current and upcoming natural anticancer agents and to attain targeted drug delivery with good efficacy and fewer side effects, there is a special focus on novel nanostructured particles and nano approaches consisting of carrier system. Recent studies have led to the discovery of mesoporous and nanoporous drug delivery mechanisms, such as inorganic or organic-based nanosponges. The metal based inorganic systems have exhibited toxicity and non-biodegradable character in vivo. As a result of problems related to inorganic systems, major shift of research from inorganic to organic nanosystems has occurred. About decades ago, researchers developed organic nanosponges to control the limitation of drug delivery and cancer therapies. This review article discusses the development and application of nanosponges encapsulated phytochemicals for cancer therapy.

Development of an UPLC–MS/MS assay to determine psoralidin in rat plasma and its application in a pharmacokinetic study after intragastric administration

Psoralidin has a variety of pharmacological activities, such as anti-tumor, anti-depressant, and anti-inflammatory activities. This study aims at developing a rapid ultra-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC–MS/MS) method to determine psoralidin in rat plasma and studying the pharmacokinetic characteristic of psoralidin after intragastric administration of 20 and 40 mg/kg. Alpinetin was used as an internal standard (IS), and the plasma samples were precipitated with acetonitrile. The calibration curves were linear over the range of 0.2–250 ng/mL (R2 = 0.993). The pharmacokinetic parameters were calculated by DAS 3.0. Half-life (t1/2) was 7.2 ± 0.97 h and 7.1 ± 0.27 h for different dosages, respectively. Tmax was 4.2 ± 1.1 h and 4.0 ± 1.1 h for different dosages, respectively. Apparent volume of distribution (Vd) for different dosages was 630.1 ± 168.8 and 600.1 ± 138.8 L/kg, respectively. Clearance (CL) was 105.6 ± 29.2 and 100.6 ± 22.2 L/h/kg for different dosages, indicating that psoralidin was mainly distributed in rat tissues. The pharmacokinetic study provided important information for further clinical application in the treatment of cancer and osteoporosis.

Phytochemicals as Potential Anticancer Drugs: Time to Ponder Nature's Bounty

Medicinal plants have been used from the beginning of human civilization, which is mostly evident from the ancient script and traditional herbal medicine recipe. Despite the historically enriched demonstration about the use of plant as therapeutics, the pharmaceutical industries lack interest on phytochemical research compared with synthetic drug. Mostly, the absence of information about plant-based medicinal therapeutics is responsible to draw the attention of researchers to think about natural products as potential drug for detrimental diseases, such as cancer. This review will cover about clinically successful plant-based anticancer drugs and underappreciated, but potential, drugs to bridge the information gap between plant biologists and clinical researchers. Additionally, unprecedented advancement of synthetic chemistry, omics study to pin point the target genes/proteins, and efficient drug delivery system have made it easier for researchers to develop a phytochemical as an efficient anticancer drug.

Chemoselective reduction of quinols as an alternative to Sonogashira coupling: synthesis of polysubstituted benzofurans

An efficient synthetic approach to polysubstituted benzofurans is described, using 2-methoxyquinone as a benzofuran backbone.

Lead Phytochemicals for Anticancer Drug Development

Cancer is a serious concern at present. A large number of patients die each year due to cancer illnesses in spite of several interventions available. Development of an effective and side effects lacking anticancer therapy is the trending research direction in healthcare pharmacy. Chemical entities present in plants proved to be very potential in this regard. Bioactive phytochemicals are preferential as they pretend differentially on cancer cells only, without altering normal cells. Carcinogenesis is a complex process and includes multiple signaling events. Phytochemicals are pleiotropic in their function and target these events in multiple manners; hence they are most suitable candidate for anticancer drug development. Efforts are in progress to develop lead candidates from phytochemicals those can block or retard the growth of cancer without any side effect. Several phytochemicals manifest anticancer function in vitro and in vivo. This article deals with these lead phytomolecules with their action mechanisms on nuclear and cellular factors involved in carcinogenesis. Additionally, druggability parameters and clinical development of anticancer phytomolecules have also been discussed.

Spiro-condensation of 5-methoxycarbonyl-1H-pyrrole-2,3-diones with cyclic enoles to form spiro substituted furo[3,2-c]-coumarins and quinolines

Highly efficient spiro-cyclization enabling cyclic enoles to act as 1,3-bis-nucleophiles in reaction with pyrrole-2,3-diones acting as 1,2-bis-electrophiles was developed.