Betulin: a natural product with promising anticancer activity against colorectal cancer cells

Abstract

Colorectal cancer is the third most frequently diagnosed type of cancer in men, while it ranks second in women. The high mortality rate of people with colorectal cancer is due to the advanced stage at diagnosis and the low selectivity of the currently used cytostatics. One of the important directions in searching for new anticancer substances is research of natural origin compounds. Betulin is a promising substance from this group, showing activity against colon cancer cells with low toxicity. Studies of betulin carried out in the aspect of the evaluation of this direction of activity concerned human tumor cell lines Col2, SW707, DLD-1, HT29 and HCT116. It was also important to determine the molecular mechanisms of action of this triterpene in colon cancer cells.

Keywords

• colorectal cancer
• betulin
• natural products