Phytochemistry and pharmacogenomics of natural products derived from traditional chinese medicine and chinese materia medica with activity against tumor cells

• Published in: Molecular cancer therapeutics Vol. 7; no. 1; pp. 152 - 161
• Main Authors: Efferth, Thomas, Kahl, Stefan, Paulus, Kerstin, Adams, Michael, Rauh, Rolf, Boechzelt, Herbert, Hao, Xiaojiang, Kaina, Bernd, Bauer, Rudolf
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Association for Cancer Research 01.01.2008
• Subjects: Antineoplastic Agents - chemistry; Antineoplastic Agents - isolation & purification; Antineoplastic Agents - pharmacology; Biological Products - chemistry; Biological Products - genetics; Biological Products - isolation & purification; Biological Products - pharmacology; Cancer; Cell Line, Tumor; Cell Survival - drug effects; Combretaceae - chemistry; Drug Screening Assays, Antitumor; Drugs, Chinese Herbal - chemistry; Drugs, Chinese Herbal - isolation & purification; Drugs, Chinese Herbal - pharmacology; Humans; Materia Medica - chemistry; Materia Medica - isolation & purification; Materia Medica - pharmacology; Medicine, Chinese Traditional; Molecular pharmacology; Molecular Structure; Natural products; Pharmacogenetics; Pharmacogenomics; Pharmacognosy; Phytochemistry; Plant Extracts - chemistry; Plant Extracts - pharmacology; Salvia miltiorrhiza; Salvia miltiorrhiza - chemistry; Traditional Chinese medicine
• ISSN: 1535-7163; 1538-8514
• DOI: 10.1158/1535-7163.MCT-07-0073

The cure from cancer is still not a reality for all patients, which is mainly due to the limitations of chemotherapy (e.g., drug resistance and toxicity). Apart from the high-throughput screening of synthetic chemical libraries, natural products represent attractive alternatives for drug development. We have done a systematic bioactivity-based screening of natural products derived from medicinal plants used in traditional Chinese medicine. Plant extracts with growth-inhibitory activity against tumor cells have been fractionated by chromatographic techniques. We have isolated the bioactive compounds and elucidated the chemical structures by nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry. By this strategy, we identified 25- O -acetyl-23,24-dihydro-cucurbitacin F as a cytotoxic constituent of Quisqualis indica . Another promising compound identified by this approach was miltirone from Salvia miltiorrhiza . The IC 50 values for miltirone of 60 National Cancer Institute cell lines were associated with the microarray-based expression of 9,706 genes. By COMPARE and hierarchical cluster analyses, candidate genes were identified, which significantly predicted sensitivity or resistance of cell lines to miltirone. [Mol Cancer Ther 2008;7(1):152–61]