Mingyu Sun, Jun Han, J. Duan
Mar 1, 2007
Citations
2
Influential Citations
68
Citations
Quality indicators
Journal
Phytotherapy Research
Abstract
Kushen (KS), the dried roots of Sophora flavescens Aiton, has a long history of use in traditional Chinese medicine to treat inflammatory diseases and cancer. Kushen alkaloids (KS‐As) and Kushen flavonoids (KS‐Fs) are the well characterized components in KS. KS‐As have been considered biologically active and developed in China as anticancer drugs. In an effort to screen novel antitumor agents from botanicals, more potent antitumor activities were identified in KS‐Fs than in KS‐As. KS‐Fs were able to inhibit the growth of a panel of tumor cell lines and enhanced the antitumor activities of Taxol in vitro. The antitumor activities of KS‐Fs and Kur, a single KS‐Fs compound, were demonstrated in murine and xenograft human tumor models. Further, it was shown that KS‐Fs and Kur were able to enhance the effect of Taxol to inhibit the growth of H460 and Eca‐109 xenograft tumors. In addition, peripheral blood cell counts were not significantly affected in normal mice treated with KS‐Fs at 200 mg/kg/day for 2 weeks. These results suggest that KS‐Fs may be developed as novel antitumor agents and that the currently marketed KS‐As drugs in China may have missed the major antitumor activities in Kushen. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.