Purification of Cucurbitacins D, E, and I from Ecballium Elaterium (L.) A. Rich Fruits and Study of Their Cytotoxic Effects on the AGS Cell Line

Pharmacokinetics and Biological Activity of Cucurbitacins

Cucurbitacins are a class of secondary metabolites initially isolated from the Cucurbitaceae family. They are important for their analgesic, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antiviral, and anticancer biological actions. This review addresses pharmacokinetic parameters recently reported, including absorption, metabolism, distribution, and elimination phases of cucurbitacins. It includes recent studies of the molecular mechanisms of the biological activity of the most studied cucurbitacins and some derivatives, especially their anticancer capacity, to propose the integration of the pharmacokinetic profiles of cucurbitacins and the possibilities of their use. The main botanical genera and species of American origin that have been studied, and others whose chemo taxonomy makes them essential sources for the extraction of these metabolites, are summarized.

Cancer and Traditional Plant Knowledge, an Interesting Field to Explore: Data from the Catalan Linguistic Area

Cancer is the second cause of death in the world and is foreseen to be responsible for about 16 million deaths in 2040. Approximately, 60% of the drugs used to treat cancer are of natural origin. Besides the extensive use of some of these drugs in therapies, such as those derived from the genus Taxus, a significant number of plants have revealed themselves as useful against cancer in recent years. The field of ethnobotany focuses on documenting traditional knowledge associated with plants, constituting a starting point to uncover the potential of new plant-based drugs to treat or prevent, in this case, tumour diseases and side effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. From a series of extensive ethnobotanical prospections across the Catalan linguistic area (CLA), we have recorded uses for 41 taxa with antitumour effects. The two most quoted botanical families are Asteraceae and Ranunculaceae, and the most frequently reported species is Ranunculus parnassifolius, a high-mountain species, which is widely collected for this purpose. The reported species have been used to treat an important number of cancer types, focusing on preventive, palliative, and curative uses, as well as to deal with the side effects of conventional treatments. Comparing our results in CLA with previous data available in the most comprehensive databases of pharmacology and a review of cytotoxicity assays revealed that for the several species reported here, there was no previous evidence of traditional uses against cancer. Despite the need for further analyses to experimentally validate the information presented here, combining traditional uses and phylogenetically-informed strategies to phytochemical and pharmacological research would represent new avenues to establish more integrative approaches, hence improving the ability to select new candidate taxa in cancer research.