From ancient herb to modern drug: Artemisia annua and artemisinin for cancer therapy

Autoren

Thomas Efferth

DOI

10.1016/j.semcancer.2017.02.009

ISSN

1044-579X

Zeitschrift

Seminars in Cancer Biology

Sprache

en

Paginierung

65 - 83

Datum der Veröffentlichung

2017

Status

Published

Herausgeber

Elsevier BV

Herausgeber URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.semcancer.2017.02.009

Datum der Datenerfassung

2022

Titel

From ancient herb to modern drug: Artemisia annua and artemisinin for cancer therapy

Ausgabe der Zeitschrift

46

Data source: Crossref

Abstract

Artemisia annua L. is used throughout Asia and Africa as tea and press juice to treat malaria and related symptomes (fever, chills). Its active ingredient, artemisinin (ARS), has been developed as antimalarial drug and is used worldwide. Interestingly, the bioactivity is not restricted to malaria treatment. We and others found that ARS-type drugs also reveal anticancer in vitro and in vivo. In this review, we give a systematic overview of the literature published over the past two decades until the end of 2016. Like other natural products, ARS acts in a multi-specific manner against tumors. The cellular response of ARS and its derivatives (dihydroartemisinin, artesunate, artemether, arteether) towards cancer cells include oxidative stress response by reactive oxygen species and nitric oxide, DNA damage and repair (base excision repair, homologous recombination, non-homologous end-joining), various cell death modes (apoptosis, autophagy, ferroptosis, necrosis, necroptosis, oncosis), inhibition of angiogenesis and tumor-related signal transduction pathways (e.g. Wnt/β-catenin pathway, AMPK pathway, metastatic pathways, and others) and signal transducers (NF-κB, MYC/MAX, AP-1, CREBP, mTOR etc). ARS-type drugs are at the stairways to the clinics. Several published case reports and pilot phase I/II trials indicate clinical anticancer activity of these compounds. Because of unexpected cases of hepatotoxicity, combinations of ARS-type drugs with complementary and alternative medicines are not recommended, until controlled clinical trials will prove the safety of non-approved combination treatments.

Addresses

Johannes Gutenberg University, Institute of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, Department of Pharmaceutical Biology, Staudinger Weg 5, 55128 Mainz, Germany. Electronic address: efferth@uni-mainz.de.

Autoren

Thomas Efferth
Thomas Efferth

DOI

10.1016/j.semcancer.2017.02.009

eISSN

1096-3650

Externe Identifier

PubMed Identifier: 28254675

Open access

false

ISSN

1044-579X

Zeitschrift

Seminars in cancer biology

Schlüsselwörter

Humans
Artemisia annua
Neoplasms
Artemisinins
Neoplasm Proteins
Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic
Oxidative Stress

Sprache

eng

Medium

Print-Electronic

Online publication date

2017

Paginierung

65 - 83

Datum der Veröffentlichung

2017

Status

Published

Datum der Datenerfassung

2017

Titel

From ancient herb to modern drug: Artemisia annua and artemisinin for cancer therapy.

Sub types

Review
Journal Article

Ausgabe der Zeitschrift

46

Data source: Europe PubMed Central

Abstract

Artemisia annua L. is used throughout Asia and Africa as tea and press juice to treat malaria and related symptomes (fever, chills). Its active ingredient, artemisinin (ARS), has been developed as antimalarial drug and is used worldwide. Interestingly, the bioactivity is not restricted to malaria treatment. We and others found that ARS-type drugs also reveal anticancer in vitro and in vivo. In this review, we give a systematic overview of the literature published over the past two decades until the end of 2016. Like other natural products, ARS acts in a multi-specific manner against tumors. The cellular response of ARS and its derivatives (dihydroartemisinin, artesunate, artemether, arteether) towards cancer cells include oxidative stress response by reactive oxygen species and nitric oxide, DNA damage and repair (base excision repair, homologous recombination, non-homologous end-joining), various cell death modes (apoptosis, autophagy, ferroptosis, necrosis, necroptosis, oncosis), inhibition of angiogenesis and tumor-related signal transduction pathways (e.g. Wnt/β-catenin pathway, AMPK pathway, metastatic pathways, and others) and signal transducers (NF-κB, MYC/MAX, AP-1, CREBP, mTOR etc). ARS-type drugs are at the stairways to the clinics. Several published case reports and pilot phase I/II trials indicate clinical anticancer activity of these compounds. Because of unexpected cases of hepatotoxicity, combinations of ARS-type drugs with complementary and alternative medicines are not recommended, until controlled clinical trials will prove the safety of non-approved combination treatments.

Date of acceptance

2017

Autoren

Thomas Efferth

Autoren-URL

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28254675

DOI

10.1016/j.semcancer.2017.02.009

eISSN

1096-3650

Zeitschrift

Semin Cancer Biol

Schlüsselwörter

Artemisia annua
Artemisinin
Cancer
Chemotherapy
Drug repurposing
Malaria
Phytotherapy
Qinhaosu
Artemisia annua
Artemisinins
Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic
Humans
Neoplasm Proteins
Neoplasms
Oxidative Stress

Sprache

eng

Country

England

Paginierung

65 - 83

PII

S1044-579X(17)30029-9

Datum der Veröffentlichung

2017

Status

Published

Datum, an dem der Datensatz öffentlich gemacht wurde

2018

Titel

From ancient herb to modern drug: Artemisia annua and artemisinin for cancer therapy.

Sub types

Journal Article
Review

Ausgabe der Zeitschrift

46

Data source: PubMed

From ancient herb to modern drug: Artemisia annua and artemisinin for cancer therapy

Tools