Anti-tumor and anti-metastatic roles of cordycepin, one bioactive compound of Cordyceps militaris

Abstract

Public interest in complementary and alternative medicine has been increased worldwide, due to its wide applications in cancer prevention and treatment. Cordycepin is one of the most common and crucial types of complementary and alternative medicine. Cordycepin (3'-deoxyadenosine), a derivative of adenosine, was first isolated from medicine drug . Cordycepin has been widely used as one compound for antitumor, which has been found to exert antiangiogenic, anti-metastatic, and antiproliferative effects, as well as inducing apoptosis. However, the mechanism of its anti-tumor activity is not well known. This review will clarify anti-tumor mechanisms of Cordycepin, which regulate signaling pathways related with tumor growth and metastasis. Cordycepin inhibit tumor growth via upregulating tumor apoptosis, inducing cell cycle arrest and targeting cancer stem cells (CSCs). Cordycepin regulates tumor microenvironment via suppressing tumor metastasis-related pathways. Thus, Cordycepins may be one of important supplement or substitute medicine drug for cancer treatment.

Cordycepin induces apoptosis in human bladder cancer T24 cells through ROS-dependent inhibition of the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway

“…Many previous studies have shown that cordycepin induces apoptosis in a variety of cancer cells under conditions that are not toxic to normal cells (21,23,38). It has also been reported that several cellular signaling pathways are involved in the induction of apoptosis of cancer cells by cordycepin (27,32,35,(38)(39)(40), and that the accumulation of ROS associated with mitochondrial dysfunction acts as a major signal in this process (27,(29)(30)32,39,41).…”

“…Recently, many studies into the natural compounds that have been traditionally used in the treatment of various diseases have shown great interest in their use as potential resources for cancer chemoprevention and chemotherapy (18)(19)(20). Among them, cordycepin is a type of nucleoside analogue that is isolated from the fungi belonging to the Cordyceps genus, such as Cordyceps militaris and C. sinensis (21)(22)(23). Although various pharmacological actions of cordycepin have been known, research on the anticancer activity, including the induction of apoptosis of cancer cells, has been conducted most extensively (21,(23)(24)(25).…”

“…Among them, cordycepin is a type of nucleoside analogue that is isolated from the fungi belonging to the Cordyceps genus, such as Cordyceps militaris and C. sinensis (21)(22)(23). Although various pharmacological actions of cordycepin have been known, research on the anticancer activity, including the induction of apoptosis of cancer cells, has been conducted most extensively (21,(23)(24)(25). For example, the intrinsic and extrinsic apoptosis pathways may be involved in the induction of apoptosis of human hepatocarcinoma and prostate cancer cells, and mouse Leydig tumor cells by cordycepin (26)(27)(28).…”

Enzymatic hydrolysis pretreatment for enhancing the protein solubility and physicochemical quality of Cordyceps militaris chicken soup

“…It has similar pharmacological activities as Cordyceps sinensis , a well‐known Chinese traditional medicine (Bai & Sheu, 2018). Extracts of CM which are mainly polysaccharides and cordycepin have been reported to possess a wide range of pharmacological actions such as antimicrobial (Jing et al, 2015), antioxidant (Wu et al, 2014), antitumor (Jin et al, 2018; Liu, Zhu, Sun, Gao, & Zhang, 2017), anti‐inflammatory (Liu et al, 2016), hepatoprotective (Wang et al, 2018), immunostimulatory (Luo et al, 2017), immunomodulatory (Wang et al, 2012), and nephroprotective activities (Chiu et al, 2016; Liu et al, 2015). Considering its various biological activities, CM is widely used for preparation of healthy food.…”

Extraction of cordycepic acid from the fruiting body of Cordyceps militaris (L.)

“…Due to the doubts raised about the safety of synthetic drugs, there is an increasing interest in the use of natural products from herbal plants and medicinal fungi (Franco et al, 2018;Jin et al, 2018). These natural sources provide many natural bioactive compounds that possess various biological activities such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, and anticancer actions (Złotek et al, 2016;Jin et al, 2018). In addition, these natural bioactive compounds have no apparent side effects on human health (Bao et al, 2018;Wang et al, 2018b).…”