Abstract

Matrine, a major component of the dried roots of Sophora flavescens Ait. (Leguminosae) has a long history of use in traditional Chinese medicine. It has been found that matrine possesses a wide range of pharmacological effects including antitumor activities on a number of cancer cell lines in recent years. However, its spectrum of practical applications is often limited due to the elusive antitumor mechanism. Thus, more and more researchers focused on the investigation of antitumor activities of matrine and active progresses have been achieved up to now. Herein, on the basis of related experimental studies, we reviewed the new progress on the antitumor mechanism of matrine and its clinical effects on cancers. Matrine could serve as an antitumor agent against many tumors by inhibiting tumor cell migration and proliferation, inducing differentiation, changing the expression of tumor relative proteins and oncogenes, interfering cell cycle, inducing cell apoptosis, inhibiting the cytokine productions and so on. The antitumor mechanism of matrine may be realized through up-regulating or down-regulating expression of the tumor relative molecules, ultimately resulting into tumor cell death mainly via cell apoptosis. Therefore, matrine has the potential to be an alternative natural product in the further clinical study.

Key words: Matrine, pharmacological effect, antitumor activity, mechanism.