Bioactive warriors from Solanaceous plants – An inclusive review on anticancer potential and its molecular mechanisms

Cancer that causes increased mortality after cardiovascular disease, and its treatment includes chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery. The Solanaceae plant family consists of economically and medicinally important plants with a wide range of metabolic diversity. The medicinal plants of the Solanaceae family are good sources of natural bioactive compounds with a wide range of biological and medicinal properties that can treat several diseases, including cancer. Although experimental evidence from several traditional medical systems is available worldwide in many countries, the types, positions, and molecular mechanisms of action of bioactive compounds in cells have not been explored. In this review, the anticancer mechanism of potential bioactive compounds isolated from various plant species of the Solanaceae family and their mode of action, such as downregulating signalling pathways, inducing cell cycle arrest, autophagy, suppressing/upregulating various apoptotic proteins, downregulating the expression of COX-2 and decreasing the phosphorylation of p-AKT and p-GSK3β, inhibiting the expression of NF-κB, suppressing various enzymes, triggering reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, and PARP cleavage, are explored in several human cancer cell lines. Furthermore, this review outlines the medicinal properties of the bioactive compounds and the disease/model on which they are used for experimental evidence. Bioactive compounds derived from the Solanaceae family have various medicinal values other than anticancer properties and can be used as potential therapeutic drugs. Furthermore, this review provides insight into the anticancer mechanism of bioactive compounds from the Solanaceae family and their potential for the treatment of various types of cancer and further identifies them as novel chemotherapeutic candidate drugs.