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Medicinal plants of Ecuador: a review of plants with anticancer potential and their chemical composition

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Abstract

Ecuador is well known for its biodiversity and its ancient richness. This review provides an overview of Ecuadorian plant species in terms of the ethnobotany and chemistry of natural products in relation to anticancer activity. Plant species were classified into two groups: (a) Ethnomedical species with confirmed antitumor activity and (b) species indigenous to Ecuador with anticancer potential. This review shows that there is a great chemical diversity in Ecuadorian plants that can be used for potential antitumor therapeutics, and chemical and biological analysis confirms the biomedical use of the plant-derived compounds as cytotoxic agents for cancer cells.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the valuable comments of Ing. Hernan Lucero of Departamento de Ciencias Naturales of Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja, Loja, Ecuador, and Dr. Edward Ratovitski of Head and Neck Cancer Research Division, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA. This work was partially supported by the grant from the SENESCYT (Quito, Ecuador) and Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (Loja, Ecuador).

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The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Medicina Genómica y Toxicología Ambiental, Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), México, DF, Mexico

    Natalia Bailon-Moscoso & Patricia Ostrosky-Wegman

  2. Sección de Genética Humana, Microbiología y Bioquímica Clínica, Departamento de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL), San Cayetano alto s/n, Loja, CP: 1101608, Ecuador

    Natalia Bailon-Moscoso

  3. Departamento de Química, Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL), Loja, Ecuador

    Juan Carlos Romero-Benavides

  4. Departamento de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL), Loja, Ecuador

    Fani Tinitana-Imaicela

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  1. Natalia Bailon-Moscoso
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  2. Juan Carlos Romero-Benavides
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Correspondence to Natalia Bailon-Moscoso.

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Bailon-Moscoso, N., Romero-Benavides, J.C., Tinitana-Imaicela, F. et al. Medicinal plants of Ecuador: a review of plants with anticancer potential and their chemical composition. Med Chem Res 24, 2283–2296 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00044-015-1335-7

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