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Review
. 2014 Jan;4(1):8-16.
doi: 10.4103/2225-4110.124811.

Anticancer principles from medicinal piper ( hú jiāo) plants

Yue-Hu Wang  1 , Susan L Morris-Natschke  2 , Jun Yang  3 , Hong-Mei Niu  3 , Chun-Lin Long  4 , Kuo-Hsiung Lee  5
Affiliations
Review

Anticancer principles from medicinal piper ( hú jiāo) plants

Yue-Hu Wang et al. J Tradit Complement Med. 2014 Jan.

Abstract

The ethnomedical uses of Piper ( Hú Jiāo) plants as anticancer agents, in vitro cytotoxic activity of both extracts and compounds from Piper plants, and in vivo antitumor activity and mechanism of action of selected compounds are reviewed in the present paper. The genus Piper (Piperaceae) contains approximately 2000 species, of which 10 species have been used in traditional medicines to treat cancer or cancer-like symptoms. Studies have shown that 35 extracts from 24 Piper species and 32 compounds from Piper plants possess cytotoxic activity. Amide alkaloids account for 53% of the major active principles. Among them, piplartine (piperlongumine) shows the most promise, being toxic to dozens of cancer cell lines and having excellent in vivo activity. It is worthwhile to conduct further anticancer studies both in vitro and in vivo on Piper plants and their active principles.

Keywords: Amide alkaloids; Anticancer; Cytotoxicity; Piper; Piperaceae.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Cytotoxic non-alkaloid constituents from Piper plants
Figure 2
Figure 2
Cytotoxic amide alkaloids from Piper plants
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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