Anti-tumor activities of matrine and oxymatrine: literature review

Cancer has become the most common disease which threats human health. After unremitting efforts from several generations of medical and pharmic Matrine workers, chemotherapy can be used for controlling the growth of cancer and has received certain curative efficacy, but the side effects of chemotherapeutic drugs limit their application. Therefore, to discover and develop novel natural compounds that have therapeutic selectivity or that can preferentially kill cancer cells without significant toxicity to normal cells is an important tendency for cancer therapy. Because of low side toxicity and wide range of biological activities, some natural products have been used as alternative treatments for cancers. Accumulating research evidence suggests that many medicinal plants may be used alone or in combination with common chemotherapeutic agents to prevent the occurrence and metastasis of cancer, or even to treat cancer [1, 2]. Lots of anticancer drugs are derived from naturally occurring compounds. Curcumin and lupeol are the examples of such compounds. Curcumin could induce apoptosis in gallbladder carcinoma GBC-SD cells [3] and inhibit the migration and invasion of mouse hepatoma Hca-F cells [4]. Lupeol could inhibit the growth and proliferation of human prostate cancer cells [5] and human metastatic melanoma cells