Advance in components with antitumor effect of Panax ginseng and their mechanisms / 中草药

ABSTRACT

Panax ginseng C. A. Mey is one of precious traditional Chinese herbal medicine for two thousand years history, due to its various pharmacological effects and wide utilization in the clinical treatment of tumors and other diseases. Presently tumor has become an important factor threatening human health that the antitumor effect of P. ginseng is attracted great attention. In this paper, the effective components of antitumor action by P. ginseng and its molecular mechanism and structure-activity relationship are summarized. Studies have shown that the main effective components of P. ginseng for antitumor effect are ginsenosides and its metabolic products of intestinal bacteria, ginseng polysaccharides, and ginseng polyacetylenes. The functional mechanism of which are clear relatively now and their main mechanisms including induction of cycle arrest, apoptosis and differentiation of tumor cells, enhancement of immunity to tumor cells, inhibition of tumor cell proliferation, invasion and metastasis, etc. And the molecular mechanism is involved in the regulation of many related genes, proteins, proteases, immune cells, cytokines, and signaling pathways, etc. In addition, the active ingredients of P. ginseng exert antitumor effect in a dose-dependent manner, and the different chemical structures of which lead to different antitumor activity. In conclusion, P. ginseng is abundant with antitumor active ingredients, which is expected to provide safe and effective natural medicine and its preparation for clinical treatment of various tumors in the future.