An overview of anticancer activity of Garcinia and Hypericum

Food and Chemical Toxicology Volume 109, Part 2, November 2017, Pages 847-862 Food and Chemical Toxicology Author links open overlay panelLavínia de C.BritoabAna Luiza RangelBerengerbMaria RaquelFigueiredob a Central Analítica Fernanda Coutinho, Instituto de Química, UERJ, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil b Laboratório de Produtos Naturais 3 (PN3), FIOCRUZ, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil Received 22 January 2017, Revised 12 March 2017, Accepted 14 March 2017, Available online 28 March 2017. crossmark-logo https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fct.2017.03.053 Get rights and content Highlights • Garcinia and Hypericum show substances with interesting pharmacological activities. • Substances isolated from these genera have activity in several tumor cell lines. • The anticancer activity of these natural products validate the search for anticancer drugs. Abstract Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide (approximately 8.2 million cases/year) and, over the next two decades, a 70% increase in new cancer cases is expected. Through analysis of the available drugs between the years of 1930 and 2014, it was found that 48% were either natural products or their derivatives. This proportion increased to 66% when semi-synthetic products were included. The family Clusiaceae Juss. (Malpighiales) includes approximately 1000 species distributed throughout all tropical and temperate regions. The phytochemical profile of this family includes many chemicals with interesting pharmacological activities, including anticancer activities. This study includes an overview of the in vitro and in vivo anticancer activity of secondary metabolites from Garcinia and Hypericum and the mechanisms involved in this activity. Hypericum no longer belong to Clusiaceae family, but was considered in the past by taxonomists, due to similarities with this family. Research in the area has shown that several compounds belonging to different chemical classes exhibit activity in several tumor cell lines in different experimental models. This review shows the significant antineoplasic activity of these compounds, in particular of these two genera and validates the importance of natural products in the search for anticancer drugs.