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Perspectives on medicinal properties of plumbagin and its analogs
Author(s) -
Padhye Subhash,
Dandawate Prasad,
Yusufi Mujahid,
Ahmad Aamir,
Sarkar Fazlul H.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
medicinal research reviews
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.868
H-Index - 130
eISSN - 1098-1128
pISSN - 0198-6325
DOI - 10.1002/med.20235
Subject(s) - plumbagin , efflux , biology , mechanism of action , pharmacology , secondary metabolite , biological activity , intracellular , drug , drug discovery , chemistry , biochemistry , in vitro , genetics , gene
Plumbagin is one of the simplest plant secondary metabolite of three major phylogenic families viz. Plumbaginaceae , Droseraceae , and Ebenceae , and exhibits highly potent biological activities, including antioxidant, antiinflammatory, anticancer, antibacterial, and antifungal activities. Recent investigations indicate that these activities arise mainly out of its ability to undergo redox cycling, generating reactive oxygen species and chelating trace metals in biological system. The compound is endowed with a property to inhibit the drug efflux mechanism in drug‐resistant bacteria, thereby allowing intracellular accumulation of the potent drug molecules. An interesting bioactivity exhibited by this compound is the elimination of stringent, conjugative, multidrug‐resistant plasmids from several bacterial strains including opportunistic bacteria, such as Acinetobacter baumannii . Moreover, plumbagin effectively induces apoptosis and causes cell cycle arrest, which is, in part, due to the inactivation of NF‐κB in cancer cells. Therefore, it has been suggested that designing “hybrid drug molecules” of plumbagin by combining it with other appropriate anticancer agents may lead to the generation of novel and potent anticancer drugs with pleiotropic action against human cancers. This comprehensive review is an attempt to understand the chemistry of plumbagin and catalog its biological activities reported to date.