Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide and currently there are many approaches developing towards cancer treatment. Cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation therapy are often painful and have adverse effects. The mechanism of apoptosis is a complex process and it involves different pathways in its mechanism of action. Apoptosis can be caused by signals within the cell such as stress, or by extrinsic signals such as ligands binding to cell surface death receptors. The programmed cell death plays a important role in the several physiological and pathological processes. It plays important role in homeostasis. Flavonoids have gained importance as anticancer agents promoting cytotoxicity and apoptosis in cancer cells. Flavonoids are present in many medicinal plants which are a kind of ubiquitous natural products and essential active ingredients. They have strong biological activities with high efficiency and low toxicity, possessing good preventive and cure effects on different tumor forms. Flavonoids such as Scutellarein, Pectolinarigenin and Naringin have reported to possess significant anti-cancer effects on different cancer cell lines till date. In this review, we provide a summary about the anti-cancer effect of the three flavonoids and its mechanisms of action that can be used in future for understanding their potent anti-tumor properties.

The development of drugs from natural plant sources is at growing interest due to the limitations of chemical drugs in terms of side effects and cost-effective factors of natural medicines. Among the various components contained in natural plant materials, flavonoids are of increasing interest because of their extended biological benefits. Flavonoids are classified into various types according to their structure and possess different activities depending on the structure. In this study, the flavonoids contained in Artemisia, native to Korea were examined and reviewed. HPLC chromatograms of three Artemisia species (Artemisia annua L., Artemisia iwayomogi and Artemisia argyi H.) were examined from published sources and their component analysis by MS data were summarized. The various flavonoids of Artemisia were classified into 12 types according to the main structure, and 10 flavonoids based on various activities were examined. The 10 flavonoids were identified as quercetin, kaempferol, rhamnetin, diosmetin, luteolin, methoxyflavone, catechin, apigenin, malvidin and genkwanin with extensive reported studies till date. The ten flavonoids examined have been reported to be effective in preventing and treating various diseases and exhibit activities such as anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antiviral, anti-obesity, anti-diabetic and anti-Alzheimer. The collective results from the reported studies suggest that the three types of Korean native Artemisia, contains various flavonoids with beneficial activities and may have therapeutic effects against diseases.