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Computer driven bioavailability analysis of some important compounds found in anticancer herbs

There is a mounting evidence that some herbs can slow down the spread of cancer and, in some cases, even cure it. In the Eastern medicines like Chinese and Ayurveda, and in South America, the evidence for this is present for centuries. Western medicine is slow in adopting it. There are several reasons for that, among them are the lack of clinical trials, the chemical complexity of anti-cancer herbs consisting of dozens of compounds like polyphenols, tannins, saponins, quinones etc., and the concern about the safety of their use. Opposite to in vivo clinical trials, a large number of in vitro experiments with anti-cancer herbs was performed, showing us these herbs alone, or in the combination with other herbs, can effectively kill various types of cancer cells. Other experiments have shown that these herbs can enhance the effectiveness of chemotherapy and lessen the side effects of it and the radiotherapy. Moreover, mouse model experiments proved the toxicity of most anti- cancer herbs is bellow the dosage required for the effective cancer-killing dose. However, in vivo animal experiments are not so convincing, and in most cases, reasons for that is the poor bioavailability of the herbal compound that fights cancer. Especially in the case when a certain compound is poorly soluble in water, it can hardly reach cancer cells within the body. In vitro and in vivo experiments are costly, last a while, and results are highly dependent on the experimental environment. Besides, there are important ethical questions of using animals in such experiments. For these reasons, we decided to perform the computer driven water solubility analysis of some compounds found in a certain anticancer herbs. Results derived from this analysis show that some of them like curcumin and artemisinin have poor water solubility, thus limiting their use, at least in their native form. At the same time, we found that computer driven molecular conformation between these compounds may help to show the way of how to increase their bioavailability, thus enhancing their anticancer activity.

anticancer herbs ; active compounds ; water solubility ; bioavailability

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