Natural Products for Cancer Therapy: A Review of Their Mechanism of Actions and Toxicity in the Past Decade

Table 1

The summary of anticancer effects of plant extracts and their isolates under review.

Plant	Extract/isolate	Cancer type	Cell line	Effects	Reference
Aristolochia baetica	Hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate extracts	Breast	MCF-7	Antiproliferation	[15]
	Methanol extract	Urinary bladder	T-24	Antiproliferation	[16]
		Colon	HT-29
		Liver	HepG2
Artemisia annua	Ethanol/water extract	Gastric	HeLa	Inhibition of cell growth	[17]
			AGS
	Extract of and acetonitrile maceration	Breast	MDA-MB-231	Cytotoxicity, antitumour, antiapoptotic in vivo	[18]
			MCF-7	Cytotoxicity
		Pancreas	MIA-PaCa-2	Cytotoxicity
		Prostate	PC-3	Cytotoxicity
		Lung	A549	Cytotoxicity
	Coptidis rhizoma	Aqueous extract	Hepatocellular carcinoma	HepG2 MHCC97-L	Inactivation of EEF2, downregulation of VEGF, suppression of angiogenesis	[19]
			MHCC97-L	Inhibition of Rho/ROCK signalling pathway, antimigration	[20]
Extract powder		Esophageal	YES-2	Downregulating tumour IL-6, anticachectic	[21]
Fagonia indica	Steroidal saponin glycoside	Breast	MDA-MB-68	PARP cleavage, caspase-3 cleavage, DNA fragmentation, apoptosis	[22]
			MCF-7	Cell lysis, necrosis
	Aqueous extract	Colon	Caco-2	PARP cleavage, caspase-3 cleavage, DNA fragmentation, apoptosis
	Indicacin	Colorectal	H-29	Cytotoxicity	[23]
Morus alba	Methanol extract	Colorectal	SW80	ROS and GSK3β-dependent-ATF3 activation, cyclin D1 proteasomal degradation	[24]
	Methanol extract	Pulmonary	Calu-6	Antiproliferation	[25]
		Colon	HCT-116
		Breast	MCF-7
	Methanol extract	Hepatoma	HepG2	Cell cycle arrest at G2/M phase, antiproliferation, apoptosis	[26]
	Albanol A	Leukemia	HL-60	Topoisomerase II activation, reduction of procaspases 3,8, and 9, increase in Bax/Bcl-2 ratio, apoptosis	[27]
	Lectin	Breast	MCF-7	Antiproliferation	[28]
		Colorectal	HCT-15	Cell cycle arrest, cytotoxicity
Plactycodon grandiflorus	Water/ethanol extract	Ovarian	SKOV-3	Downregulation of Bcl-2, upregulation of Bax, activation of caspase and mitochondrial cytochrome c release	[29]
	Saponin	Fibrosarcoma	HT-1080	Downregulation of MMP-9 and MMP-2, cytotoxicity, antiinvasion	[30]
	Polysaccharides	Cervical	U14	Apoptosis, upregulation of P19ARF and Bax, reduction of mutant p53 protein	[31]
	Platycodin D	Breast	MCF-7	Activation of caspases, PRP cleavage, cytotoxicity	[32]
		Leukemia	U937	Activation of Egr-1 gene, production of ROS, apoptosis	[33]
			U937 THP-1 K562	Antiproliferation, downregulation of hTERT, inhibition of telomerase activity	[34]
				Antiproliferation
				Antiproliferation