Chemo‐preventive and therapeutic effect of the dietary flavonoid kaempferol: A comprehensive review

Abstract

Kaempferol, a natural flavonoid present in several plants, possesses a wide range of therapeutic properties such as antioxidant, anticancer, and anti-inflammatory. It has a significant role in reducing cancer and can act as a therapeutic agent in the treatment of diseases and ailments such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, oxidative stress, asthma, and microbial contamination disorders. Kaempferol acts through different mechanisms: It induces apoptosis (HeLa cervical cancer cells), decreases cell viability (G2/M phase), downregulates phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT (protein kinase B) and human T-cell leukemia/lymphoma virus-I (HTLV-I) signaling pathways, suppresses protein expression of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-related markers including N-cadherin, E-cadherin, Slug, and Snail, and metastasis-related markers such as matrix metallopeptidase 2 (MMP-2). Accordingly, the aim of the present review is to collect information pertaining to the effective role of kaempferol against various degenerative disorders, summarize the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, antidiabetic, and antiaging effects of kaempferol and to review the progress of recent research and available data on kaempferol as a protective and chemotherapeutic agent against several ailments.

Flavonoids as Anticancer Agents

“…Quercetin was also able to suppress cancer cell proliferation due to inhibition of PI3K/Akt pathway [119]. Flavonol kaempferol, a phytoestrogen [120], induced intrinsic apoptosis in A2780/CP70, A2780wt and OVCAR-3 cell lines. Its main effects were related to the activation of caspases 3 and 7, the upregulation of p53, Bax and Bad and the downregulation of Bcl-xL protein [121].…”

Polyphenols: A concise overview on the chemistry, occurrence, and human health

“…Quercetin and kaempferol are the main representative molecules (Figure ). A recent work has described the role of quercetin exploiting the previous published papers on the effect of quercetin (Hirpara, Aggarwal, Mukherjee, Joshi, & Burman, ; L. Li, Zhang, & Du, ; Miltonprabu et al, ; Oboh, Ademosun, & Ogunsuyi, ; Rauf et al, ), and (Calderón‐Montaño, Burgos‐Morón, Pérez‐Guerrero, & López‐Lázaro, ; A. Y. Chen & Chen, ; Devi et al, ; Imran et al, ) against several chronic diseases.…”

“…Li, Zhang, & Du, 2018;Miltonprabu et al, 2017;Oboh, Ademosun, & Ogunsuyi, 2016;Rauf et al, 2018), and (Calderón-Montaño, Burgos-Morón, Pérez-Guerrero, & López-Lázaro, 2011; A. Y. Chen & Chen, 2013;Devi et al, 2015;Imran et al, 2019) against several chronic diseases.…”

Therapeutic effects of kaempferol affecting autophagy and endoplasmic reticulum stress

“…Kaempferol (3,4/,5,1‐tetrahydroxyflavoune) is a yellowish flavonoid compound that is found in a variety of vegetables and fruits including tea, cabbage, broccoli, endive, kale, beans, tomato, strawberries, and grapes (Georgiev, Ananga, & Tsolova, ). Kaempferol is widely administrated in traditional medicine due to its multiple biological and therapeutic activities such as antioxidant (Du et al, ; Wu et al, ), anti‐inflammatory (Kouhestani, Jafari, & Babaei, ; Lin et al, ; Sun et al, ; Yao et al, ; Yeon et al, ), antiobesity (Torres‐Villarreal et al, ), cardiovascular protection (Suchal et al, , ; Xiao et al, ; Zhou et al, ), antiaging (Li & Pu, ; Sharoar et al, ), antiallergic (Chung et al, ; Imran et al, ; Podder et al, ; Shin et al, ), antiplatelet aggregation (Choi et al, ), protection against bone disorders (Kim et al, ; Lee et al, ; Wong, Chin, & Ima‐Nirwana, ; Zhu et al, ), antitumor (Chuwa et al, ; Colombo et al, ; Hung et al, ; Wang et al, ; Zhu & Xue, ), and antidiabetic (Luo et al, ; Peng et al, ; Sharma et al, ; Varshney, Gupta, & Roy, ; Xu et al, ; Zang et al, ). Notably, kaempferol has a lipophilic feature which leads to its absorption by small intestine (Imran et al, ).…”