Gastrointestinal & Digestive System
Editorial
Amin and Lowe, J Gastroint Dig Syst 2012, 2:5
http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2161-069X.1000e111
Open Access
Plant-Based Anticancer Drug Development: Advancements and Hurdles
Amr Amin1, 2* and Leroy Lowe3
1
2
3
Department of Biology, UAE University, UAE
Department of Zoology, Cairo University, Egypt
President and Cofounder, Getting to Know Cancer, Nova Scotia, Canada
Keywords: Cancer; Natural products; Drug development; Therapeutics; Phytochemicals; Chemopreventive agents
In addition to the practices of the Chinese, Greeks and Romans,
one of the oldest and best-known records of civilized medicine was
described in the Egyptian ‘Ebers Papyrus’ (circa 1500 BCE), which
documented over 700 drugs, mostly of plant origin [1]. Throughout
different civilizations humans have relied on nature to accommodate
their basic needs, not the least of which are medicines for the treatment
of a wide spectrum of diseases from coughs and colds to parasitic
infections and inflammation.
A sobering statistic has recently shown that a person born in the
United States today has a 41% lifetime risk of being diagnosed with
cancer. This alarming fact has urged the health care community to
identify effective methods of cancer prevention [2]. Cancer cells exhibit
deregulation in multiple cellular signaling pathways, yet all cancers share
a number of common hallmark capabilities, such as genetic instability,
self-sufficiency in growth signals, insensitivity to anti-growth signals,
avoidance of apoptosis, unlimited replication, sustained angiogenesis,
and tissue invasion and metastasis [3]. Therefore, utilizing specific
agents to target single pathways is a tactic that frequently fails in cancer
therapy. Genetic instability produces intra-tumoral heterogeneity that
enables adaptive resistance. Combination chemotherapy that targets a
number of distinct molecular mechanisms is therefore preferable and
considered more promising, but the use of multiple agents is often
constrained due to corresponding increases in toxicity [4].
Accumulating evidence has shown that some natural products
such as saffron [5,6] and curcumin [4] and many others have growth
inhibitory and apoptosis inducing effects both in vivo and in vitro.
Frequently this sort of action is made possible by site-specific action on
multiple cellular signaling pathways without causing undesired toxicity
in normal cells. Therefore, these non-toxic natural agents could be
useful in combination with conventional chemotherapeutic agents for
the treatment of human malignancies with lower toxicity and higher
effectiveness.
The use of natural products has increased in the United States with
approximately 18% of American adults in 2007 reported using natural
products beyond a basic multivitamin. Individuals use natural products
for a variety of health reasons, including treating and preventing disease,
maintaining health, and promoting wellness [2]. So the potential of
natural products is increasingly being recognized. At the same time,
natural products remain one of the most important sources of new drug
leads with more than half of all new chemical entities launched in the
market are natural products or their derivatives or mimetics. In fact the
borderline between food and medicine is as fuzzy as it is ever been [7].
The efficacy of natural products as chemopreventive agents for
primary and tertiary cancer prevention has not yet been established.
Observational studies have suggested that various vitamins, minerals,
and dietary components reduce the risk of developing specific cancers.
However, clinical trials have not always supported these observations
and/or the trials have not been conducted to test the efficacy of the
natural products as chemopreventive agents. And although there is
also a common perception that natural products are safe because they
are “natural”, a natural product is not necessarily a safe product. So,
J Gastroint Dig Syst
ISSN: 2161-069X, an open access journal
current guidelines from the American Institute of Cancer Research,
the American Cancer Society, and the Society for Integrative Oncology
recommend against the use of dietary supplements for cancer
prevention based on the current evidence [2].
Unfortunately, how well these compounds might work in the
inhibition of cancer has yet to be rigorously tested in Phase IV tests.
There is also little known about the interactions of naturally occurring
chemical (phytochemical) with other drugs prescribed by physicians
and used by patients for the treatment of cancer or other diseases.
Thus our current knowledge has many gaps that will need to be
resolved before such compounds can receive approval by regulatory
agencies, broad acceptance by the medical community and join other
pharmaceuticals on drugstore shelves [8].
Nonetheless, our ability to address these knowledge gaps is rapidly
improving. A large number of robust and specific biochemical- and
genetics-based screens using transformed cells, a key regulatory
intermediate in a biochemical or genetic pathway, or a receptor-ligand
interaction (often derived from the explosion in genomic information
since the middle 1990s) are now in routine use. These screens are
enabling precise detection of the actions of bioactive components of
natural product extracts [1]. And since many phytochemicals have
characteristics that will allow them to be combined with far less danger
of toxicity and a much lower risk of invoking multiple drug resistance, it
makes the idea of targeting a broad-spectrum of mechanisms in cancer
cells (using complex combinations of chemicals) a very real possibility.
Historically, the complexity of cancer necessitated an incredible
amount of specialization that has led to very narrowly scoped research.
In the past two decades this approach has resulted in significant
advances in our understanding of the disease, but unfortunately this
trend towards specialization has meant that very few researchers
ever have the freedom or the opportunity to undertake projects that
are broad in scope. For similar reasons, many conventional research
funding agencies and journals have not been all that supportive of anticancer research involving too many biologically active ingredients due
to concerns over the number of variables that can be controlled in any
given experiment. But we need to overcome these systemic barriers if
we are going to match the complexity of the disease with an approach to
prevention and therapy that is equally complex (i.e., capable of shutting
down a wide range of immortalized cells by acting on many different
mechanisms and pathways).
*Corresponding author: Amr Amin, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science,
UAE University, Al-Ain 17551, UAE, Tel: 7316519; E-mail: [email protected]
Received November 26, 2012; Accepted November 27, 2012; Published November 29, 2012
Citation: Amin A, Lowe L (2012) Plant-Based Anticancer Drug Development:
Advancements and Hurdles. J Gastroint Dig Syst 2:e111. doi:10.4172/2161069X.1000e111
Copyright: © 2012 Amin A, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under
the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and
source are credited.
Volume 2 • Issue 5 • 1000e111
Citation: Amin A, Lowe L (2012) Plant-Based Anticancer Drug Development: Advancements and Hurdles. J Gastroint Dig Syst 2:e111. doi:10.4172/2161069X.1000e111
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In an attempt to address this problem, “The Halifax Project” has
been initiated, and a task force of nearly 300 scientists will attempt to
address this large-scale problem in a holistic manner [9]. In addition,
new publishers such as OMICS Publishing group are readily accessible
in different media and accepting research papers with far fewer
constraints on the complexity of the bio-molecules used.
4. Sarkar FH, Li Y (2009) Harnessing the fruits of nature for the development of
multi-targeted cancer therapeutics. Cancer Treat Rev 35: 597-607.
References
6. Amin A, Hamza AA, Bajbouj K, Ashraf SS, Daoud S (2011) Saffron: A potential
candidate for a novel anticancer drug against hepatocellular carcinoma.
Hepatology 54: 857-867.
1. Cragg GM, Newman DJ (2010) Nature as Source of Medicines; Novel Drugs
from Nature; Screening for Antitumor Activity. Comprehensive Natural Products
II 3: 135-175.
2. Greenlee H (2012) Natural Products for Cancer Prevention. Semin Oncol Nurs
28: 29-44.
3. Ziech D, Anestopoulos I, Hanafi R, Voulgaridou GP, Franco R, et al. (2012)
Pleiotrophic effects of natural products in ROS-induced carcinogenesis: The
role of plant-derived natural products in oral cancer chemoprevention. Cancer
Lett 327: 16-25.
5. Bajbouj K, Schulze-Luehrmann J, Diermeier S, Amin A, Schneider-Stock R
(2012) The anticancer effect of saffron in two p53 isogenic colorectal cancer
cell lines. BMC Complement Altern Med 12: 69.
7. Heinrich M (2010) Ethnopharmacology and Drug Discovery. Comprehensive
Natural Products II 3: 351-381.
8. Amin A, Buratovich M (2010) The Anti-Cancer Charm of Flavonoids: A Cup-ofTea Will Do You Good. In: Atta-Ur-Rahman, Choudhary MI (Eds.). Frontiers in
Anti-Cancer Drug Discovery. entham Science Publishers, Oak Park.
9. Getting to Know Cancer.
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J Gastroint Dig Syst
ISSN: 2161-069X, an open access journal
Volume 2 • Issue 5 • 1000e111