Current Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 25, Issue 10, 2018

Background: Natural phenolics are secondary plant metabolites, which can be divided into several categories with the common structural feature of phenolic hydroxyl. The biological activity of phenolics is often modified and enhanced by prenylation by prenyl and geranyl; higher terpenoid chains are rare. The type of prenyl connection and modification affects their biological activity. Objective: This review summarizes infor Read More

Background: Although Cannabis sativa L. is one of the most versatile plant species with multipurpose use both as medical, alimentary source and as psychoactive abuse, its biomedical relevance focused the attention on major cannabinoids. Phytochemical characterization of cannabis highlights the presence of various non-cannabinoids constituents including flavonoids, spiroindans, dihyrostilbenes, dihydrophenanthrenes, lignana Read More

O-Prenyl coumarins (3,3-dimethylallyl, geranyl-, farnesyl- and related biosynthetic derivatives) represent a class of rarely occurring natural products. In the last two decades, such secondary metabolites have been found to possess promising and effective pharmacological properties, mainly in terms of anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties. To date, about 160 oxyprenylated coumarins have been extracted fro Read More

Background: Dihydrostilbenoids, a diverse class of natural products differing from stilbenoids by the missing double bond in the ethylene chain linking the aromatic moieties, have been reported from fungi, mosses, ferns, and flowering plants. Objective: Occurrence, structure, and bioactivity of naturally occurring dihydroresveratrol type dihydrostilbenoids are discussed in this review. Method: A Reaxys database search for dihy Read More

Sesquiterpenes are natural products that have been extensively studied for their bioactivities, evidencing their potentiality as useful scaffolds for the development of drugs. Considering the different derivatives, the sesquiterpene lactones have been evaluated, especially on cancer cell and antineoplastic efficacy in in vivo studies. Their bioactivity is strictly related to the presence of the reactive α-methylene-γ-lactone group ( Read More

Background: Plants produce several bioactive secondary metabolites whose are used as therapeutic agents to treat several diseases, among whom cancer. Triterpenes are secondary metabolites that exert inhibitory activity against multiple intracellular and extracellular targets in euchariotic cells. These targets are proteins involved in apoptosis, cell development and differentiation, angiogenesis, metastasis and inflammatory Read More