flavanoids

Wnt /β-catenin signaling plays an important role in tumor cell dedifferentiation and proliferation. Wnt proteins are a family of secreted glycoproteins. Abnormal activation of wnt signaling results in tumor progression. Wnt proteins binds to the frizzled receptors and LRP5/6 co-receptors and through the stabilization of β-catenin a critical mediator, initiates a complex signaling cascade that plays an important role in regulating cell proliferation and differentiations. The elevated levels of oncogenic protein-β-catenin have been observed in many of the human cancers, indicating that this pathway plays an important role in tumor development. The wnt signaling can be inhibited at the extracellular level, at regulatory protein level and also by targeting the expressions of β-catenin by protein knockdown and by targeting the downstream mediators of β-catenin signaling such as c-myc, cyclin D1, PPARS and COX-2. In this review we discuss the effects of  NSAIDS and flavanoids that are being used or explored to target the β-catenin signaling in the treatment of cancers.

Plant polyphenols are gaining increasing attention due to their potent antioxidant properties and marked effects in the prevention of various oxidative stress associated diseases. Identification and extraction of phenolic compounds from different plants has become a major area of health and medical research. In the present study, antioxidant activity of methanolic extracts of vegetative and reproductive parts of Moringa oleifera Lam. were tested for its free radical scavenging activity by spectrophotometric methods. Total phenolic and total flavonoid content were assayed spectrophotometrically. We observed high amount of total phenolic and flavonoid content in leaves and flowers of Moringa oleifera and this may be responsible for increased antioxidant activity in the plant. Antioxidant enzymes like ascorbate and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) were also found to be higher in vegetative and reproductive parts of Moringa oleifera. Our study reveals that M. oleifera leaves and flowers are potent source of natural antioxidants and the plant is valuable in pharmaceutical industry.