Studies in Natural Products Chemistry: Chapter 1. Recent Insights into the Emerging Role of Triterpenoids in Cancer Therapy: Part I

Natural products and/or their derivatives represent more than half of currently available drugs, and in the case of cancer, this proportion exceeds 60%. Triterpenoids are a large group of natural compounds found in numerous living organisms, and particularly prevalent in plants, that have attracted great attention, especially for their antineoplastic and antiproliferative agents in various cancer cell lines, for the development of novel pharmaceutical drugs. The recent developments in the antitumor properties of natural and synthetic triterpenes belonging to oleanane, dammarane, hopane, lanostane, and ursane groups are described with a special focus on the structure–activity relationship.