380007

Yemeni Medicinal Plants as A Source of Anticancer Drugs: A Review

Article

Last updated: 29 Mar 2025

Subjects

-

Tags

Pharmaceutical Chemistry

Abstract

Cancer is the leading cause of death worldwide and a serious metabolic illness. Finding novel compounds that are optimally harmful to cancer cells but not to healthy ones has become crucially important. Plant-based medications continue to be an important source for the treatment of severe ailments, especially in developing countries. Traditional medicine has a long history and is still widely used in Yemen to treat a wide range of illnesses. Flora of Yemen is rich in endemic and semi-endemic plants, constituting about 16% of Yemeni plants which recorded 2838 plant species belonging to 179 families. Therefore, the present review aims to summarize the cytotoxic plants available in Yemen. The review covers 229 species, belongs to 163 genera and 72 families collected from several localities in Yemen. Most of studies showed high and intermediate activity against 44 different cancer cell lines such as liver, and breast using different assays and different extraction solvents as well as over 7 isolated bioactive cytotoxic compounds. Current study concluded that Yemeni medicinal plants are considered as an underutilized source of medicines for treating cancer. Further great efforts are required to evaluate the effectiveness of different Yemeni plants on several cancer cell lines, to isolate and identify the chemical compounds responsible for such activity.

DOI

10.21608/ejchem.2024.307608.10091

Keywords

Cytotoxicity, Yemen flora, medicinal plants, Review, cancer cell lines, phytoconstituents

Authors

First Name

Helmi

Last Name

Mokbel

MiddleName

Ahmed Qassm

Affiliation

Pharmacognosy, Pharmacy, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt

Email

helmi20002000@yahoo.com

City

Cairo

Orcid

0009000354446470

First Name

Seham

Last Name

El Hawary

MiddleName

Salah El Dine

Affiliation

Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Cairo University

Email

seham.elhawary@pharma.cu.edu.eg

City

Cairo

Orcid

0000-0002-6823-1142

First Name

Rasha

Last Name

Allam

MiddleName

Mosa

Affiliation

Pharmacology Department, Medical and Clinical Research Institute, National Research Centre, Dokki, Cairo, 12622, Egypt.

Email

rasha.allam@nawah-scientific.com

City

Cairo

Orcid

-

First Name

Amira

Last Name

El motayam

MiddleName

kamal

Affiliation

Pharmacognosy Department, Faculty of Pharmacy, Cairo University, Kasr El-Ainy Street

Email

amira.kamal@pharma.cu.edu.eg

City

Cairo

Orcid

-

First Name

Ali

Last Name

El-Halawany

MiddleName

Mahmoud

Affiliation

Pharmacognosy department, Faculty of Pharmacy-Cairo University

Email

ali.elhalawany@pharma.cu.edu.eg

City

Cairo

Orcid

-

Volume

68

Article Issue

5

Related Issue

54251

Issue Date

2025-05-01

Receive Date

2024-07-28

Publish Date

2025-05-01

Page Start

99

Page End

148

Print ISSN

0449-2285

Online ISSN

2357-0245

Link

https://ejchem.journals.ekb.eg/article_380007.html

Detail API

http://journals.ekb.eg?_action=service&article_code=380007

Order

380,007

Type

Review Articles

Type Code

444

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Egyptian Journal of Chemistry

Publication Link

https://ejchem.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Yemeni Medicinal Plants as A Source of Anticancer Drugs: A Review

Details

Type

Article

Created At

09 Mar 2025