REVIEW OF COUMARIN-CONTAINING ANTICANCER AGENTS SYNTHESIZED IN RECENT YEARS

Research & Reviews in Science and Mathematics, PROF.DR.HASAN AKGÜL, Editör, GECE KİTAPLIĞI, Ankara, ss.1-20, 2021

Cancer, the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells called cancer

cells, malignant cells or tumor cells anywhere in the body, is the second

most common cause of death worldwide, killing more than 8 million

people each year. The most common types of cancer that cause death

are lung, stomach, liver, colon and breast cancer. With an estimated 13.1

million deaths (an increase of about 70%) in 2030, cancer deaths are

projected to continue to rise worldwide.

Many natural and synthetic compounds have been used in cancer

treatment for years. Coumarin compounds are also one of the compounds

used (Borges et al., 2013). Psoralen (or 7H-furo [3,2-g]chromen-7-one)

is a furanocoumarin that exhibits anti-arthritic, antimicrobial and antiinflammatory

effects (Asif, 2015). On the other hand, esculetin the

IUPAC name of which is 6,7-dihydroxy-2H-chromen-2-one has been

reported to protect single-cell DNA from oxidative attack (Aneko

et al., 2007). Esculetin is propitious to regulate vasoconstriction by

diminishing the release of nitric oxide (Liang et al., 2017), it overcomes

the Sp1 transcription factor (Liang et al., 2017) and binds with β-catenin

proteins resulting in the inhibition of β-catenin–Tcf signaling pathway

of gastrointestinal tumorigenesis (Lee et al., 2013) and it also inhibits

melanin biosynthesis (Sollai et al., 2008). New coumarin compounds are

added to the literature every year as anticancer agents. Coumarins are

heterocyclic compounds belonging to the class of benzopyrone and the

breakdown of them results in the formation of active metabolites with

therapeutic activity, such molecules are called as pro-drugs (Stefanachi

et al., 2018). Therefore they have a lot of bioactive properties such as

anticoagulant, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antitumor,

antiviral, and enzyme inhibition. Higher doses of coumarin are found

to be hepatotoxic (Iwata et al., 2016).