Current Advances in Coptidis Rhizoma for Gastrointestinal and Other Cancers

Abstract

Canceris a serious disease with an increasing number of reported cases and high mortality worldwide. Gastrointestinal cancer defines a group of cancers in the digestive system, e.g., liver cancer, colorectal cancer, and gastric cancer.Coptidis Rhizoma(C. Rhizoma; Huanglian, in Chinese) is a classical Chinese medicinal botanical drug for the treatment of gastrointestinal disorders and has been shown to have a wide variety of pharmacological activity, including antifungal, antivirus, anticancer, antidiabetic, hypoglycemic, and cardioprotective effects. Recent studies onC. Rhizomapresent significant progress on its anticancer effects and the corresponding mechanisms as well as its clinical applications. Herein, keywords related toC. Rhizoma, cancer, gastrointestinal cancer, and omics were searched in PubMed and the Web of Science databases, and more than three hundred recent publications were reviewed and discussed.C. Rhizomaextract along with its main components, berberine, palmatine, coptisine, magnoflorine, jatrorrhizine, epiberberine, oxyepiberberine, oxyberberine, dihydroberberine, columbamine, limonin, and derivatives, are reviewed. We describe novel and classic anticancer mechanisms from various perspectives of pharmacology, pharmaceutical chemistry, and pharmaceutics. Researchers have transformed the chemical structures and drug delivery systems of these components to obtain better efficacy and bioavailability ofC. Rhizoma. Furthermore,C. Rhizomain combination with other drugs and their clinical application are also summarized. Taken together,C. Rhizomahas broad prospects as a potential adjuvant candidate against cancers, making it reasonable to conduct additional preclinical studies and clinical trials in gastrointestinal cancer in the future.