Pinocembrin (5,7-dihydroxyflavanone) is one of the primary flavonoids isolated from the variety of plants, mainly from Pinus heartwood, Eucalyptus, Populus, Euphorbia, and Sparattosperma leucanthum, in the diverse flora and purified by various chromatographic techniques. Pinocembrin is a major flavonoid molecule incorporated as multifunctional in the pharmaceutical industry. Its vast range of pharmacological activities has been well researched including antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anticancer activities. In addition, pinocembrin can be used as neuroprotective against cerebral ischemic injury with a wide therapeutic time window, which may be attributed to its antiexcitotoxic effects. Pinocembrin exhibits pharmacological effects on almost all systems, and our aim is to review the pharmacological and therapeutic applications of pinocembrin with specific emphasis on mechanisms of actions. The design of new drugs based on the pharmacological effects of pinocembrin could be beneficial. This review suggests that pinocembrin is a potentially promising pharmacological candidate, but additional studies and clinical trials are required to determine its specific intracellular sites of action and derivative targets in order to fully understand the mechanism of its anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and apoptotic effects to further validate its medical applications.

Although the incidences are increasing day after day, scientists and researchers taken individually or by research group are trying to fight against cancer by several ways and also by different approaches and techniques. Sesquiterpenes, flavonoids, alkaloids, diterpenoids, and polyphenolic represent a large and diverse group of naturally occurring compounds found in a variety of fruits, vegetables, and medicinal plants with various anticancer properties. In this review, our aim is to give our perspective on the current status of the natural compounds belonging to these groups and discuss their natural sources, their anticancer activity, their molecular targets, and their mechanism of actions with specific emphasis on apoptosis pathways, which may help the further design and conduct of preclinical and clinical trials. Unlike pharmaceutical drugs, the selected natural compounds induce apoptosis by targeting multiple cellular signaling pathways including transcription factors, growth factors, tumor cell survival factors, inflammatory cytokines, protein kinases, and angiogenesis that are frequently deregulated in cancers and suggest that their simultaneous targeting by these compounds could result in efficacious and selective killing of cancer cells. This review suggests that they provide a novel opportunity for treatment of cancer, but clinical trials are still required to further validate them in cancer chemotherapy. Cancer Prev Res; 7(11);

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Isoalantolactone, a medicinal plant-derived natural compound, is known to induce apoptosis in various cancer cell lines. However, its effect on apoptosis in prostate cancer cells has not been addressed. Thus, we examined the effects of isoalantolactone on prostate cancer cells. It was found that isoalantolactone inhibits growth of both androgen-sensitive (LNCaP) as well as androgen-independent (PC3 and DU-145) prostate cancer cells in a dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, our results indicate that isoalantolactone-induced apoptosis in prostate cancer PC3 cells is associated with the generation of ROS and dissipation of mitochondrial membrane potential (Δψm). In addition, isoalantolactone triggers apoptosis in prostate cancer cells via up-regulation of Bax, down-regulation of Bcl-2, survivin, and significant activation of caspase-3. Isoalantolactone-induced apoptosis is markedly abrogated when the cells were pretreated with N-acetylcysteine (NAC), a specific ROS inhibitor, suggesting that the apoptosis-inducing effect of isoalantolactone in prostate cancer cells is mediated by reactive oxygen species. These findings indicate that isoalantolactone induces reactive OPEN ACCESSMolecules 2013, 18 9383 oxygen species-dependent apoptosis in prostate cancer cells via a novel mechanism involving inhibition of survivin and provide the rationale for further in vivo and preclinical investigation of isoalantolactone against human prostate cancer.

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Eriocalyxin B inhibits proliferation and induces apoptosis through down -regulation of Bcl-2 and activation of caspase-3 in human bladder cancer cells Bangladesh Journal of Pharmacology Research Article IntroductionNatural products provide many promising sources of potential anti-cancer agents and several lead structures in the past decades, which were originally isolated from plants such as paclitaxel, camptothecin, vinca alkaloids, and etoposide have potential application in cancer chemotherapy, therefore, plants are considered as one of the most vital sources for the development of novel anti-cancer drugs (Amin et al., 2009;Cragg and Newman, 2005). Diterpenoids constitute a vast class of isoprenoid natural products, which are found mainly in plants and fungi and also been found in marine organisms and insects as well (Garcia et al., 2007;Hanson, 2004). Eriocalyxin B (EriB) is a natural entkaurene diterpene compound isolated from Isodon eriocalyx var. laxiflora, a herb of the Labiatae family distributed in the South-West China and has been reported to have wide spectrum of biological effects, including anti-inflammatory and antibacterial agent in local folk medicine (Ikezoe et al., 2003;Wang et al., 2007). Furthermore, EriB has anti-proliferative effect and induced apoptosis in cancer cells such as ovarian cancer (Leizer et al., 2010), pancreatic adenocarcinoma (Li et al., 2012) and leukemia (Wang et al., 2007;Zhang et al., 2010). However, the cytotoxic effects of EriB on bladder cancer and its mechanism were still unknown.Bladder cancer is an increasingly common and potentially lethal malignancy (Ploeg et al., 2009 AbstractEriocalyxin B (EriB) has been shown to possess promising anti-cancer potential against various cancer cells. However, its effect against bladder cancer cells remained unexplored. In this study, for the first time, we investigated the effects of EriB on cell proliferation, cell cycle, and apoptosis in bladder cancer T24 cells. In order to examine the effects of EriB on cell proliferation, cell cycle, and apoptosis, we performed MTT assay, flow cytometric analysis and Western blot. The results revealed that EriB decreased the cell viability of T24 cells. Flow cytometric analysis demonstrated that EriB markedly induced apoptosis of T24 cells and arrested cell cycle at G2/M phase in a dose-dependent manner. Further characteriza-tion showed that EriB involved in the down-regulation of Bcl-2 and activation of caspase-3 before culminating in apoptosis in EriB-treated T24 cells. These in vitro results suggested that EriB should be further examined for in vivo activity in human bladder cancer. This ork is li e sed u der a Creati e Co o s Attri utio 3.0 Li e se. You are free to opy, distri ute a d perfor the ork. You ust attri ute the ork i the a er spe ified y the author or li e sor. Article Info

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