Anticancer Properties of Solamargine: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Cancers are usually treated by anticancer agents that are toxic for both normal and cancer cells, so these drugs have major side effects and they are not suitable and enough effective for cancer prevention. Solamargine, a steroidal alkaloid glycoside found in Solanum species such as Solanum nigrum, displayed several therapeutic activities. We aim to review the use of solamargine in experimental cancer studies. Articles published in biology journals between 1975 and 2017 were retrieved from PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science using relevant keywords. The scientific papers mainly focusing on solamargine with therapeutic efficacies against cancers were identified and tabulated. In addition, the reliability of experimental findings was determined under "Risk of Bias" criteria. The author manually reviewed 33 articles; 27 articles were found concerning the anti-cancer potential in cancer cells. Solamargine has been found to possess anticancer activities via its effect on a variety of biological pathways including cell survival pathways, tumor suppressor pathways, caspase activation pathway, mitochondrial pathways, death receptor pathways, protein kinase pathways, and signal pathways, which promote invasion/migration and multi drug resistance. Solamargine can be an anticancer agent candidate when complementary scientific evidences become available. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Chemoresistant ovarian cancer enhances its migration abilities by increasing store-operated Ca2+ entry-mediated turnover of focal adhesions

“…SR-T100, a newly patented product extracted from Solanum incanum, which contains solamargine alkaloid as the main active ingredient, is a potent inducer of apoptosis in different cancer cells that upregulates the expression of death receptor signaling cascades [42,43]; it downregulated Bcl-X L but upregulated Bax and caused caspase-3 activation of the mitochondrial pathway [44,45]. SR-T100 has been used as an anticancer drug for clinical therapy [46,47]. To elucidate the underlying mechanisms of chemoresistance affecting cell migration in ovarian cancer, several chemoresistant human ovarian cancer IGROV1 sublines to cisplatin or SR-T100 were established and applied in this study.…”

In silico analysis of the binding properties of solasonine to mortalin and p53, and in vitro pharmacological studies of its apoptotic and cytotoxic effects on human HepG2 and Hep3b hepatocellular carcinoma cells

“…Many health benefits of the steroidal glycoalkaloids from Solanaceae have been reported, with an emphasis on their potent anticancer properties, although their mechanisms of action seem to be multiple . Numerous studies have been done on the anticancer properties of solamargine . In contrast, the anticancer effect of solasonine has been little studied .…”

“…Further, it is known that the cell population subset, which is gated in the upper right panel in annexin V experiments, may be composed not only of late apoptotic cells but also necrotic cells. Therefore, the possibility that solasonine may also induce cell death by triggering necrotic pathways in both HCC cell lines cannot be discarded, as already suggested for solamargine among its multiple anticancer properties .…”

Phytotherapeutics in cancer invasion and metastasis

“…Solamargine, an alkaloid derived from Solanum plants, was tested in lung cancer (H69 and H661) cells in combination with trastuzumab. Solamargine is a steroidal alkaloid glycoside that shows several therapeutic activities, including anticancer properties (Kalalinia & Karimi‐Sani, ). The combination decreased cell proliferation and sensitized trastuzumab (and epirubicin) treated cells, because solamargine upregulated HER2 and TOP2A expressions and augmented trastuzumab and epirubicin‐induced apoptosis (Liang et al, ).…”