AN OVERVIEW ON ANTICANCER ACTIVITY OF SOME MEDICINAL PLANTS OF HIMALAYAN REGION

Abstract

The conventional treatments of cancer by chemotherapy, surgery, radiotherapy, etc. are difficult and cause adverse side effects. Plants are the prominent source of unique phytochemicals, which provide a novel mechanism to delay the growth or eliminate the neoplastic cells without causing side effects to the normal cells. This review aims to provide an ethnobotanical, phytochemical, and toxicological overview of some of the Himalayan medicinal plants having anticancer properties. The review is prepared by consulting published reports, articles, and books. The data were assessed from different sources like JSTOR, Medline, PubMed, etc. published from 1987 – 2020. The 20 medicinal plants belonging to 17 families were reviewed for their anticancer properties. Paris polyphylla on HCT-116 (colorectal), Annona squamosa on MCF-7 (breast), A-549 (lung), and HePG2 (liver), Semecarpus anacardium on MCF-7, MCF-10A, CEM, and CEM/VLB cells  and  4’-demethyl- deoxypodophyllotoxin-4-O-β-D glucopyranoside from Podophyllum hexandrum on MCF-7, PC-3 (prostate),  Hela (cervical), HCT-116 (colorectal) and HEK-293(kidney) cancer cell lines are found to exhibit very strong cytotoxicity with IC₅₀ values less than 1 µgm/ml. Seven plants are found to show significant cytotoxicity on different cell lines with IC₅₀ values less than 10 µg/ml. Therefore, this review is helpful to summarize the different methodological ways to evaluate the natural products of some of the Himalayan plants having anticancer properties.

Key words: Himalayan medicinal plants, Phytochemicals, Anticancer activity, Cytotoxic, neoplastic cells