Review on taxol as the most important anticancer natural drug

Abstract

Taxol is a diterpeniod with complex structure, which is extracted frequently from the genus Taxus. At present, this drug is one of the most important anticancer natural agents with different mechanism from other similar drugs, used for remedy of different cancers such as, melanoma, lung cancer, non-hodgkins lymphoma, meatus urinarius cancer, esophagus cancer, etc. At present, many scientists are trying total synthesis and semi-synthesis of taxol and also its extraction from cell culture, however, these methods have characteristic problems. The increasing demand of taxol for clinical use as an anticancer drug combined with limited supply from plant sources require a thorough understanding of its biosynthesis and extraction methods.