Review Article
Antitumor Activity of Artemisinin and Its Derivatives: From a Well-Known Antimalarial Agent to a Potential Anticancer Drug
Table 1
Factors that may influence artemisinins response in cancer cells.
| System | Factor/characteristic |
| Cancer cell | Proliferating activity | Expression of transferrin receptors | Accumulation levels of iron | Levels of gene expression (i.e., proapoptotic and antiapoptotic genes) | Shifting hallmarks | Overexpression of potential molecular targets in some tumors | Cellular dependence on redox balance | Expression of antioxidant enzymes | Expression of estrogen receptors in breast cancer cells |
| Artemisinin compound | Dose and time of exposure | Chemical structure: number of trioxane rings, for example, dimeric compounds can be up to >1000 fold-more potent than monomeric artemisinins [61] | In dimeric endoperoxides: nature and stereochemistry of the linker | In novel compounds, electrophilic substitutions in the ring or those conferring lipophilicity. Boat/chair conformation |
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