3.2 Anticarcinogenesis
Flavonoids have been considered as high impact on the cancer prevention and some selected isoflavones have tendency to inhibit cancer in a number of animal models. Some studies revealed that the flavonoids inhibit carcinogenesis in vitro and significant results also indicates that they also do it in vivo [47,48]. Flavonoids are the dominant class of phenolic compounds in mulberry leaves.
The mulberry leaves shows effective cytotoxic behavior against the cancer cells and the mechanism is shown in figure 10. Many anticancer compounds found in mulberry leaves like Kaempferol, Kuwanon S, Morusin, with strong activity towards cytotoxic cell lines Hela, MCF-7 and Hep3B. The galactose binded lectin isolated from the mulberry leaves has cytotoxic activity on the human breast cancer with IC50-8.5 μg and also on colon cancer cell with IC50-16 μg. [49]. Many phenolic compounds are present in mulberry leaves which induces anticancer activity in hepatoma cells by cell cycle captured at G2-M phase and inhibition of topo-isomerase II activity. The anthocyanins are also a phenolic compound present in mulberry leaves and has beneficial effects in decreasing the risk of cancer because of its high chemopreventive properties [50]. Another flavonoid present in mulberry leaves is Quercetin which is capable of reducing the progress of human β leukemia [51].Many other clinical trials revealed the therapeutic potential of mulberry leaves against cytotoxicity as a cheap and easily available source for the treatment of cancer and reduces the invasiveness of cancer cells. The flavonoids and quercetins present also exhibited selective cytotoxicity against human ovarian cancer and gastric cancer [52].