Artemisinin is a kind of antimalarial drug with high efficiency and low toxicity, which was first isolated from Artemisia annua by Chinese researchers.artemisininIt contains a unique peroxide bridge, which can react with ferrous ions to form oxygen free radicals, induce cell molecular damage and cell death, or damage the structure and function of cells through direct oxidation, leading to cell death.DihydroartemisininDihydroartemisinin (DHA) is the main metabolite of artemisinin in vivo. Compared with artemisinin, DHA has better water solubility and stronger antimalarial effect.

Mechanism of anti-tumor effect of DHA

1  Ferrous ion mediated cell injury

    There are more transferrin receptors on the surface of malignant cells than normal cells, so there are a lot of fe2+ in malignant cells. The peroxide bridge in DHA combines with fe2+ in tumor cells to form oxygen free radicals, which leads to the direct destruction of tumor cells.

2  Inducing apoptosis

    DHA can reduce Bcl-2 and increase Bax expression at mRNA and protein levels to induce apoptosis of ovarian cancer cells. DHA can also induce apoptosis by blocking cell cycle.

3  Effect of anti-tumor vascular and lymphatic growth

    DHA can effectively inhibit the expression of vgef mRNA and protein in K562 cells with high expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). After DHA treatment, the endothelial cell proliferation ability of K562 cell culture medium was significantly reduced.

4  Reversing multidrug resistance in cancer

    DHA can increase the cytotoxicity of pirarubicin and adriamycin on adriamycin resistant small cell lung cancer glc4/adr cell line, which shows that DHA can reverse the drug resistance of tumor.