A review of the biological and pharmacological activities of saponins

Triterpenoid and steroidal glycosides, referred to collectively as saponins, are bioactive compounds present naturally in many plants. They have considerable potential as pharmaceutical and/or nutraceutical agents in natural or synthetic form. Saponins, from a variety of sources, have been shown to have hypocholesterolemic, anti-coagulant, anticarcinogenic, hepatoprotective, hypoglycemic, immunomodulatory, neuroprotective, anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant activity. This paper reviews saponin research of the last decade, focussing on developments in understanding their mechanism of action and structure-activity relationships. Virtually all of this work has used animal and in vitro models. To date there are very few human data.

The bioactivity of saponins: triterpenoid and steroidal glycosides.

Medicinal bulbous plants of South Africa and their traditional relevance in the control of infectious diseases.

Cancer is a major cause of death and the number of new cases, as well as the number of individuals living with cancer, is expanding continuously. Due to the enormous propensity of plants that synthesize mixtures of structurally diverse bioactive compounds, the plant kingdom is potentially a very diverse source of chemical constituents with tumor cytotoxic activity. Despite the successful utilization of few phytochemicals, such as vincristine and taxol, into mainstream cancer chemotherapy, commercial plant-derived anticancer formulations represent only one-fourth of the total repertoire of the available treatment options. Though significant progress has been made towards the characterization of isolated compounds and their structure-related activities, the complex composition of plant extracts, along with the lack of reproducibility of activity and the synergy between different, even unidentified, components of an extract, prohibits the full utilization of plants in pharmaceutical research. In this review,...

Terrestrial Plant-Derived Anticancer Agents and Plant Species Used in Anticancer Research

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2013/np/c3np70008a

The chemistry and biological activity of the Hyacinthaceae

Phytochemical studies of the bulbs of Scilla peruviana, Eucomis bicolor, Chionodoxa gigantea and C. luciliae gave respectively two new and two known, four new and two known, three known, and one new and five known lanosterol oligosaccharides. The structures of the new compounds were determined from spectroscopic data. A total of 19 lanosterols, including previously isolated compounds, were examined for inhibitory activity on 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol 13-acetate (TPA)-stimulated 32P incorporation into phospholipids of HeLa cells as the primary screening test to find new antitumor-promoter compounds.

Lanosterol oligosaccharides from the plants of the subfamily scilloideae and their antitumor-promoter activity

Certain Lilium plants contain (25S)-spirost-5-ene-3 beta,27-diol glycosides embracing 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaric acid at the C-27 hydroxy position. One of their derivatives, methyl ester of (25R)-27-O-[(S)-3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl]-spirost-5-ene-3 beta,27-diol 3-O-(O-alpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1-->2)-O-[beta-D-glucopyranosyl-(1-->4)] - beta-D-glucopyranoside) was found to inhibit 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA)-stimulated 32P-incorporation into the phospholipids of human cervical cancer (HeLa) cells and also to inhibit the proliferation of various kinds of human malignant tumor cells, pancreatic cancer (PANC-1), osteosarcoma (OST), human gastric cancer (HGC-27), pheochromocytoma (PC-12) and HeLa cells, in vitro.

Inhibitory Effects of Steroidal Saponins on 12-O-Tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA)-Enhanced 32P-Incorporation into Phospholipids of HeLa Cells and Proliferation of Human Malignant Tumor Cells

Minpei Kuroda

Papers

Lanosterol oligosaccharides from the plants of the subfamily scilloideae and their antitumor-promoter activity

Inhibitory Effects of Steroidal Saponins on 12-O-Tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA)-Enhanced 32P-Incorporation into Phospholipids of HeLa Cells and Proliferation of Human Malignant Tumor Cells