Pteridophytes as a potential treasury of anticancer agents

Abstract

Human has been interacting with plants from the beginning of human existence. Plants have provided humans with basic needs such as sustenance, firewood, livestock feed, and wood. Approximately there are over 3 million vascular plants on the earth. As the first vascular plants, pteridophytes are an ancient lineage, and human beings have been exploring and using taxa from this lineage for over 2000 years because of their beneficial properties. About 13,600 species of ferns are distributed in worldwide. In India, Himalayas, Western and Eastern Ghats, and Pachmarhi Biosphere Reserve are major distribution of pteridophytes. They remain underexplored in ethno botanical aspects, than any other vascular plants despite being regarded as a valuable component of healthcare. Cancer is one of the leading causes of death and globally the numbers of cases on cancer are increasing gradually. Among the anticancer drugs, about 50% come from natural products as isolated or semisynthetic or related synthetic compounds and plants represent important source of these substances. Among all the pteridophytes examined, taxa from the Polypodiaceae, Pteridaceae, Davalliaceae and Aspleniaceae contain more anticancer compounds like taxol, Vinca alkaloids, camptothecin, podophyllotoxins etc.