Anticancer potential of indirubins in medicinal chemistry: Biological activity, structural modification, and structure-activity relationship

Indirubin is the crucial ingredient of Danggui Longhui Wan and Qing-Dai, traditional Chinese medicine herbal formulas used for therapy chronic myelocytic leukemia in China hundreds years. Although monomeric indirubin has been treatment human leukemia. However, due to low water solubility, poor pharmacokinetic properties therapeutic effects are major obstacle, had significantly limited its clinical application. Consequently, attractive anticancer profile enthused numerous researchers discover novel derivatives with improved pharmacodynamic activity as well good property. In this paper, we comprehensively review recent progress potential indirubins, structural modification structure-activity relationship, which may provide useful direction further development indirubins pharmacological profiles various types cancer.