Table 1.

Overview of the cytotoxic activities of Ferula species

Plant Name	Important Compound	Biological activity	cell line	Tested concentrations (IC 50 ) µg/mL	Mechanism of action	Reference
F.vesceritensis	Lapiferin	Cytotoxic Apoptotic	MCF7 MCF7	12.85 10	Anticancer activity Induction of apoptotic cell death through enhancement of DNA fragmentation, activation of caspases and induction of histone acetylation	Gamal-Eldeen and Hegazy, 2010
F. assa-foetida	8-acetoxy-5-hydroxy Umbelliprenin	Cytotoxic	A549	15.09	Potent and specific inhibition of NF-κB	Appendino et al., 2006
F. assa-foetida	Coumarin compounds	Cytotoxic	HepG2		Inhibition of mutagenesis, DNA destruction andcancer cells proliferation while increasing proteolyticenzymes activity	Asadisamani et al., 2015
F. gummosa	Sesquiterpenes, coumarins	Cytotoxic	HepG2		Induction of cell cycle arrest and apoptosis	Asadisamani et al., 2015
F. assa-foetida	Ferutinin	Cytotoxic	CT26 HT29	26 29	Induction of apoptosis	Arghiani et al., 2014
F. communis	Ferulenol	Cytotoxic	MCF-7	1	Reorganization of the microtubule network in MCF-7 cells and alteration of nuclear morphology	Altmann and Gertsch, 2006
F. sinkiangensis	Ethyl acetate Fraction	Cytotoxic	MCF7	9.0 mg/L	Inhibition of tumor cell proliferation	Zhang et al., 2015a
F. lutea	Methyl caffeate	Cytotoxic	HCT-116 IGROV-1 OVCAR-3	22.5±2.4 17.8±1.1 25±1.1	Not-mentioned	Znati et al., 2014a
F.szowitziana	Dendrosomal farnesiferol C	Antiproliferative and Apoptotic	AGS (gastric cancer)	>150 μΜ (24h) 80 μΜ (48h)	Significant time- and dose-dependent suppression of AGS cells proliferation	Aas et al., 2015
F. assa-foetida	kellerin	Antiviral	HSV-1	concentrations of 10, 5 and 2.5 μg/mL	Reduction of viral titre of the HSV-1 DNA viral strains KOS	Ghannadi et al., 2014
F. pseudalliacea	Kamolonol, 4′-hydroxy kamolonol acetate,and farnesiferon B	Cytotoxic	HeLa-60	3.8, 4.5, and 7.7μM, respectively	Seemingly, these compounds interfere with fundamental processes of growth and metabolism of the cells.	Dastan et al., 2014a
F. lutea	n-butanol extract	Cytotoxic	K562	40 μg/mL	Low cytotoxicity compared to doxorubicin.	Znati et al., 2014b
F. szowitsiana	Auraptene	Cytotoxic	MCF7	59.7 μM	Induction of a sub-G1 peak in the flow cytometry histogram, DNA fragmentation and apoptosis as well as up-regulation of Bax expression.	Mousavi et al., 2015
F. szowitsiana	Chimganin-Chimgin	Cytotoxic	MCF-7	45.2 for Chimginand 28 for Chimganin	Not-mentioned.	Sahranavard et al., 2009
F. sinkiangensis	DAW22	Apoptotic	C6 glioma cell	18.92 μM in 24h	Induction of apoptosis through ER stress and mitochondrial death-receptor mediated pathways.	Zhang et al., 2015b
F. gummosa	Ethanolic extract	Cytotoxic	BHY (human oral squamous	(0.001±1.2 mg/mL) in 72h	Induction of apoptosis and cell-cycle arrestin G1/S phase.	Gudarzi et al., 2014
F. szowitsiana	Umbelliprenin	Antigenotoxic	human lymphocytes	25 to 400 μM	Inhibition of H2O2-induced DNA damage.	Soltani et al., 2009
F. ovina	Ferutinin	Apoptotic	MCF7, TCC and HFF3	29, 24 and 36 μg/ml, respectively	Induction of apoptosis.	Matin et al., 2014
F. szowitsiana	Farnesiferol C	Antitumor	Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC)	1 mg/kg body weight	Inhibition of VEGFR1.	Lee et al., 2010
F. badrakema	Mogoltacin	Increasing the Cytotoxicity of vincristine	TCC		Inhibition of P-glycoprotein-mediateddrug transport	BehnamRassouli et al., 2009
F. pseudalliacea	Sanandajin	Cytotoxic	HeLa cells	2.2 µM	Not mentioned.	Dastan et al., 2014b
F. ovina	Tschimgine	Acetylcholinesterase inhibitory effect	Red blood cell (RBC) AchE	(inhibition 63.5%)	Anti-cholinesterase activity	Karimi et al., 2010
F. narthex	Sesquiterpenecoumarins	Anticancer	PC3 cells	14.074±0.414μg/mL	Not mentioned.	Alam et al., 2016
F. oopoda	Dehydrooopodin	Cytotoxic	MCF7 and K562	15 and 5µM, respectively	Not mentioned.	Kasaian et al., 2014a
F. assa- foetida	Methanolic extract	Cytotoxic	MDA-MB-231 Cell Line	About 650 μg/mL In 72h	Not mentioned.	Vahabi et al., 2014
F. gummsa	Ethanolic extract	Cytotoxic	Gastric cancer, AGS	37.47 µg/mL	Induction of apoptosis via induction of DNA fragmentation and plasma membrane translocation of phosphatidyl serine.	Gharaei et al., 2013
F. szowitsiana	Umbelliprenin	Apoptotic	Jurkat T-CLL		Induction of caspase-mediated apoptosis. Activation of intrinsic and extrinsic pathways of apoptosis by activation of caspase-9 and caspase-8.	Gholami et al., 2013
F. szowitsiana	Umbelliprenin	Cytotoxic	QUDB and A549 lung cancer	47±5.3 μM and 52±1.97 μM, respectively	Induction of apoptosis.	Khaghanzadeh et al., 2012