Withanolides biological activity

Withanolides, Biologically Active Natural Steroidal Lactones A Review... 

Anjaneyulu ASR, Rao DS, Lequesno PW (1998) Withanolides, biologically active natural steroidal lactones A review. In Atta-ur-Rahman (ed) Studies in natural products chemistry, vol 20... 

As a group these steroids and the corresponding chlorohydrins display interesting biological activity. Several withanolides induce quinone reductase... 

The stereocontrolled syntheses of steroid side chains for ecdysone, crustecdysone, brassinolide, withanolide, and vitamin D3 have been reviewed (185). Also, other manuscripts, including reviews on the partial synthesis of steroids (186), steroid drugs (187—189), biologically active steroids (190), heterocyclic steroids (191), vitamin D (192), novel oxidations of steroids (193), and template-directed functionalization of steroids (194), have been published. 

A wide range of the biological activities of the plants having withanolides as principle constituents have attracted the attention of the researchers and led to the isolation of the therapeutically active constituents, the withanohdes, followed by the pharmacological evaluation of these compoxmds to validate their traditional uses. 

The purification, structure elucidation, and pharmacological studies on different classes of bioactive withanolides further validate the traditional uses of withanolide-producing plants to treat various ailments by local and traditional people. Diverse structural features, low toxicity, and novel and diverse mechanism of action make them suitable drug candidates for the treatment of various cancers and tumors. However, there is a need of extensive studies at the interface of chemistry and biology to fully explore the potent anticancer activity of withanolides, an essential step toward anticancer drug development with enhanced activity and lower toxicity, as compared to the available chemotherapeutic agents. 

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