Therapeutic Potential of Emodin for Gastrointestinal Cancers

Abstract

Gastrointestinal (GI) cancers cause one-third of all cancer-related deaths worldwide. Natural compounds are emerging as alternative or adjuvant cancer therapies given their distinct advantage of manipulating multiple pathways to both suppress tumor growth and alleviate cancer comorbidities; however, concerns regarding efficacy, bioavailability, and safety are barriers to their development for clinical use. Emodin (1,3,8-trihydroxy-6-methylanthraquinone), a Chinese herb-derived anthraquinone, has been shown to exert anti-tumor effects in colon, liver, and pancreatic cancers. While the mechanisms underlying emodin’s tumoricidal effects continue to be unearthed, recent evidence highlights a role for mitochondrial mediated apoptosis, modulated stress and inflammatory signaling pathways, and blunted angiogenesis. The goals of this review are to (1) highlight emodin’s anti-cancer properties within GI cancers, (2) discuss the known anti-cancer mechanisms of action of emodin, (3) address emodin’s potential as a treatment complementary to standard chemotherapeutics, (4) assess the efficacy and bioavailability of emodin derivatives as they relate to cancer, and (5) evaluate the safety of emodin.

Hydroxyanthracene derivates citotoxicity: A differential evaluation between single molecule and whole plant extract

“…Similarly, an analogous result was also obtained from the comparison between emodin and Rhamnus purshiana. Our results confirm that the activity of emodin in increasing intracellular ROS and in promoting DNA damage (McDonald et al, 2022) by the identification of several proteins involved DNA damage repair process uniquely identified in emodintreated samples. DNA ligases 1 (LIG1) was found also in this subset, along with ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal hydrolase 10 (UBP10) involved in autophagy and in the cascade of processes induced by the cell cycle regulator phosphoprotein p53, in response to the detection of DNA damage (Yuan et al, 2010).…”

Emodin Exhibits Strong Cytotoxic Effect in Cervical Cancer Cells by Activating Intrinsic Pathway of Apoptosis

“…Quinones can react with intracellular molecular oxygen to become superoxide anions, which could be the reason for the escalated ROS generation in emodin treated HeLa cells. [10] Emodin has been shown to induce intracellular ROS in cancer cells in previous studies. [11][12][13] Recent studies have suggested that emodin could induce apoptosis by targeting mitochondria.…”

“…There has been an upsurge in the study of natural phytochemicals, for their anticancer potential, over the last two decades. [10] Recently, emodin has been shown to exhibit growth inhibitory property against different cancer cell lines in many in vitro studies. [10] However, only few studies have explored the efficacy of emodin in cervical cancer cells.…”

“…[10] Recently, emodin has been shown to exhibit growth inhibitory property against different cancer cell lines in many in vitro studies. [10] However, only few studies have explored the efficacy of emodin in cervical cancer cells. In this study, cytotoxic activity of emodin was, first of all, explored via MTT assay on HeLa cervical cancer cell lines which showed that emodin was able to suppress the survival of HeLa cells in a dose-and time-…”

Combination Anticancer Therapies Using Selected Phytochemicals

“…Emodin displays its anticancer effect on different cell lines with different mechanisms. Generally, emodin exerts its anti-tumor activity by inducing mitochondrial apoptosis and inhibiting pathways that promote proliferation, inflammation, angiogenesis, and tumorigenesis [ 211 ]. In colon cancer (CC), emodin regulated the localization and expression of Bcl-2 family proteins by regulating PI3K/AKT, MAPK/JNK, STAT, and NF-κβ molecular signaling pathways [ 212 ].…”