Abstract
The main limits of current anticancer therapy are relapses, chemoresistance, and toxic effects resulting from its poor selectivity towards cancer cells that severely impair a patient’s quality of life. Therefore, the discovery of new anticancer drugs remains an urgent challenge. Natural products represent an excellent opportunity due to their ability to target heterogenous populations of cancer cells and regulate several key pathways involved in cancer development, and their favorable toxicological profile. Piper nigrum is one of the most popular spices in the world, with growing fame as a source of bioactive molecules with pharmacological properties. The present review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the anticancer potential of Piper nigrum and its major active constituents—not limited to the well-known piperine—whose undeniable anticancer properties have been reported for different cancer cell lines and animal models. Moreover, the chemosensitizing effects of Piper nigrum in association with traditional anticancer drugs are depicted and its toxicological profile is outlined. Despite the promising results, human studies are missing, which are crucial for supporting the efficacy and safety of Piper nigrum and its single components in cancer patients.
Highlights
Nowadays, cancer represents one of the biggest challenges that must be handled as a multifaceted global health issue
Key Contribution: The present review provides a comprehensive overview of the anticancer potential of Piper nigrum and its main bioactive component piperine, highlighting the key mechanisms involved in the anticancer activity of piperine, with a glimpse of the activity of its other bioactive molecules
The downregulation of β-catenin downstream targets (cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), cyclin D1, and c-myc) triggered apoptosis and inhibited cell proliferation and metastasis [53]. These results show that piperine inhibits cancer metastasization independently of the cancer cell type and mainly via the downregulation of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)’ expression and Epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) inhibition
Summary
Cancer represents one of the biggest challenges that must be handled as a multifaceted global health issue. Black pepper (Piper nigrum L. family Piperaceae) is one of the most used household spices in the world, with its characteristic biting quality. Research on the anticancer effects of Piper nigrum and its constituents is a hot topic, as evidenced by the large number of recent publications on the subject, deserving an updated synopsis. The present paper provides a quite comprehensive overview of the anticancer potential of Piper nigrum and its main bioactive component piperine. We highlight the key mechanisms involved in the anticancer activity of piperine, with a glimpse of the activity of other bioactive molecules of Piper nigrum or its extracts. We present the chemosensitizing effects of piperine in association with traditional anticancer chemotherapy and analyze and discuss its toxicological profile
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