Progress in the research on the anti-cancer activity of artemisinin compounds

Artermisinin compounds are widely used anti-malarial drugs,which also possess anti-cancer activities in various tumor cells and mouse models.It has been shown that artemisinin compounds exert their anti-cancer activity by inducing oxidative stress,cell cycle arrest,apoptosis and anti-angiogenesis activity,etc. Due to the low cytotoxicity and anti-multidrug-resistant activity,artermisinin compounds may be potentially developed for cancer therapy.