Evodiamine A Novel Anti-Cancer Alkaloid from Evodia rutaecarpa.docVIP

Molecules 2009, 14, 1852-1859; doi:10.3390/moleculeOPEN ACCESS molecules ISSN 1420-3049 /journal/molecules Review Evodiamine: A Novel Anti-Cancer Alkaloid from Evodia rutaecarpa Junlin Jiang and Changping Hu* Department of Pharmacology, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Central South University, Xiang-Ya Road #110, Changsha 410078, China; E-mail: snow_jjl@ (J-L.J.) * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-mail: huchangping@; Tel.: +086-731-2355079; Fax: +086-731-2355078 Received: 20 April 2009; in revised form: 4 May 2009 / Accepted: 7 May 2009 / Published: 18 May 2009 Abstract: Traditional Chinese herbs are regarded as a new and promising source of potential anti-cancer remedies and new chemotherapy adjuvants to enhance the efficacy of chemotherapy and/or to ameliorate its side effects. Extensive investigations have been undertaken both in the experimental and clinical studies over the years to augment the efficacy of chemotherapy. Evodia rutaecarpa is a very popular multi-purpose herb traditionally used in China for the treatment of headaches, abdominal pain, postpartum hemorrhage, dysentery and amenorrhea. The major constituents of Evodia rutaecarpa are evodiamine and rutaecarpine. Growing evidence demonstrates that evodiamine possesses anti-cancer activities both in vitro and in vivo by inhibiting proliferation, invasion and metastasis, inducing apoptosis of a variety of tumor cell lines. This review is aimed to summarize the recent researches on evodiamine focusing on anti-cancer activity and to highlight molecular mechanisms during the past ten years. Keywords: evodiamine; anti-cancer; apoptosis; proliferation; angiogenesis  Molecules 2009, 14 1853 1. Introduction Chinese herbs have been and still are widely used as important remedies in Oriental medicine. Over the recent years, a variety of biologically active constituents have been isol