Gypsogenin Battling for a Front Position in the Pentacyclic Triterpenes Game of Thrones on Anti-Cancer Therapy: A Critical Review—Dedicated to the Memory of Professor Hanaa M. Rady

Abstract

In the last decade, gypsogenin has attracted widespread attention from medicinal chemists by virtue of its prominent anti-cancer potential. Despite its late identification, gypsogenin has proved itself as a new anti-proliferative player battling for a frontline position among other classic pentacyclic triterpenes such as oleanolic acid, glycyrrhetinic acid, ursolic acid, betulinic acid, and celastrol. Herein, we present the most important reactions of gypsogenin via modification of its four functional groups. Furthermore, we demonstrate insights into the anti-cancer activity of gypsogenin and its semisynthetic derivatives and go further by introducing our perspective to judiciously guide the prospective rational design. The present article opens a new venue for a better exploitation of gypsogenin chemical entity as a lead compound in cancer chemotherapy. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first review article exploring the anti-cancer activity of gypsogenin derivatives.

Triterpenoids from Meehania fargesii with Cytotoxic Activity1

“…Based on spectroscopic analysis and comparison to literature values, the structures of the known compounds were elucidated as 2α,3α,24-trihydroxyurs-12-en-28-oic acid (2), [11] esculentic acid (3), [12] asiatic acid (4), [13] ursolic acid (5), [14] corosolic acid (6), [15] tormentic acid (7), [16] euscaphic acid (8), [17] 2α,3α,24-trihydroxyolean-12-en-28-oic acid (9), [18] 2α,3α,23-trihydroxyolean-12-en-28-oic acid (10), [19] arjunolic acid (11), [20] oleanolic acid (12), [21] maslinic acid (13), [15] epi-maslinic acid (14), [22] 3β-hydroxy-11α,12α-epoxyoleanan-28,13β-olide (15), [23] jacoumaric acid ( 16), [24] 3β-O-(trans-p-coumaroyl) maslinic acid (17), [25] and 3β-p-Z-coumaroylcorosolic acid (18), [25] respectively.…”

Overview of Ursolic Acid Potential for the Treatment of Metabolic Disorders, Autoimmune Diseases, and Cancers via Nuclear Receptor Pathways

“…Many FDA-approved drugs are derived from natural sources, especially in the cancer chemoprevention field [21][22][23]. Pentacyclic triterpenes (PTs) are bioactive plant secondary metabolites with a multitude of bio-pertinent effects [24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. They function to protect plants against pathogens and water loss, thus characterized by their lipophilic scaffold [31].…”

“…Provoked by our interest in triterpenes chemistry and bioactivity [29,30,49,82,83] and also in targeting NRs, we systemically compiled all previous studies linking UA to NR modulation. We emphasized the effect of UA on each NR and dissected the resulting bioactivity against metabolic disorders, autoimmune-induced inflammations, and cancers.…”

Pancreatic Cancer Management by Pentacyclic Triterpenes

“…Pentacyclic triterpenes (PTs) are hydrophobic phytochemicals existing in plants and endowed with a vast array of biological activities including, anti-inflammatory [43,44], anti-atherosclerotic [45,46], antihypertensive [45,47], hepatoprotective [48][49][50], anti-viral [51,52], anti-fibrosis [53,54], and anti-ulcer effects [55]. PTs and their semisynthetic derivatives are particularly promising anticancer agents with a favorable safety profile [56][57][58][59].…”