Strigolactones-a novel class of phytohormones as anti-cancer agents

Abstract

Chemotherapy shows some promising results in the inhibition of cancer, but resistance to chemotherapy and its severe side effects may occur in due course, resulting in only restricted and narrow benefits. Therefore, there is a pressing need to find alternative chemotherapeutic drugs for combating cancers. Plants have been used since ages in medicine, and by the dawn of 19th century, various potent and promising anti-cancer products have been derived from plants. Strigolactones (SLs) are a novel class of phytohormones involved in regulating the branching of shoots. Recently, many novel synthesized SL analogues have been found to be effective against solid and non-solid tumours. These hormones have been reported to have a unique mechanism of inhibiting cancer cells by lowering their viability and promoting apoptosis and cell death at micromolar concentrations. Therefore, synthetic SL analogues could be future potent anti-cancer drug candidates. Further research is needed to identify and deduce the significance of these synthetic SL analogues.

Keywords: GR24; MEB55; ST362; anti-cancer; apoptosis; cancer; phytohormones; synthetic SL analogues.

Fig. 1. Molecular structures of synthetic strigolactone analogues GR-24, ST362 and MEB55 with their respective molecular weights.³⁷⁾

Fig. 2. Schematic view depicting the differential regulation of genes and biological processes related to cell death and apoptosis induced by GR-24, ST362 and MEB55.

Fig. 3. Overview of the anti-cancer effects exerted by the novel strigolactone analogues TIT 3 and TIT 7 in HepG2 cells.