Anticancer agents from diverse natural sources

Abstract

Cancer is one of the major causes of death and the number of new cases, as well as the number of individuals living with cancer, is expanding continuously. Worldwide the alarming rise in mortality rate due to cancer has fuelled the pursuit for effective anticancer agents to combat this disease. Finding novel and efficient compounds of natural origin has been a major point of concern for research in the pharmaceutical sciences. Natural products have been seen to possess the potential to be excellent lead structures and to serve as a basis of promising therapeutic agents for cancer treatment. Many successful anti-cancer drugs currently in use are natural products or their analogues and many more are under clinical trials. This review aims to highlight the invaluable role that natural products have played, and continue to play, in the discovery of anticancer agents and also summarizes the recently launched natural product-derived anticancer drugs and new natural product templates in clinical pipeline.