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Acetogenins are a class of polyketide natural products found in plants of the family Annonaceae. They are characterized by linear 32- or 34-carbon chains containing oxygenated functional groups including hydroxyls, ketones, epoxides, tetrahydrofurans and tetrahydropyrans. They are often terminated with a lactone or butenolide. Over 400 members of this family of compounds have been isolated from 51 different species of plants.
Examples include:
Biological effects
Acetogenins have been investigated for their potential therapeutic use in treating cancer, but this potential is tempered with concerns about neurotoxicity. Well over half of all cancer patients pursue some sort of complementary and alternative medical treatments. Neither purified acetogenins nor crude extracts of the pawpaw or the Brazilian pawpaw (Asimina triloba, Annonaceae) have been approved by the FDA for cancer treatment, but they have exhibited antitumor efficacy both in animal models and in a limited number of clinical studies. There is a lack of rigorously controlled clinical trials, casting doubt of the efficacy of acetogenins.
Both the Pawpaw extract and acetogenins appear to inhibit HIF-1 activation by blocking the hypoxic induction of nuclear HIF-1α protein.