Medicinal Plants and Epigenetic Mechanisms in Cancer

Abstract

This current and comprehensive review provides relevant information on some medicinal plants and the epigenetic mechanisms in different cancers, such as mama, prostate, lung and colorectal cancer. The search was made using relevant and updated scientific articles published in the last ten years (2010-2021) and which reflect the information related to the epigenetic activity of medicinal plants in different types of cancer. Bibliographic reviews were included, some that collected various data from both individual and different plants. Experimental designs were also conducted, which demonstrated anticancer activity with bioactive compound extraction methodologies. The keywords such as “epigenetics”, “medicinal plant”, and “cancer” in English and Spanish were used to filter the results, which were 17,500 in English and 2,540 in Spanish. We used databases such as Elsevier, ScienceDirect, NCBI, Springer and Dialnet. Eight articles were selected, of which some showed a compilation of plants and their mechanisms of action. Documents that did not clearly describe the action of bioactive compounds and those that did not meet the requested criteria were excluded. There are two species regarding mama cancer, such as Capsicum Chinese, Vitis vinifera, and a natural product such as thymoquinone, in which the epigenetic mechanism is histone acetylation. In two species for colon cancer, Artemisia sieversiana and Certonia siliqua, the epigenetic mechanisms are apoptosis induction, activation of autophagic pathways and the activation of apoptosis-inducing enzymes in the latter species. Two prostate cancer species, Radix angelicae sinensis and Withania somnifera, show a DNA methylation mechanism.