Kaempferol

Kaempferol (3,5,7-trihydroxy-2-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-4H-1-benzopyran-4-one) is an important natural flavonol. It is one of those compounds in the family of flavonoids which is sourced from fruits and vegetables such as grapes, herbs, tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, kale, beans, endive, leek, tomato and tea. Traditional medicine also uses plants containing the flavone such as Ginkgo biloba leaves, Tilia spp., Equisetum spp., Moringa oleifera, Sophora japonica, and propolis.

It is a biologically active compound that has a number of pharmacologocal activities. The glycosides of kaempferol which are forms to which various sugars are bound also have activity. These include the following activities:-

• antioxidant,
• anti-inflammatory,
• antimicrobial,
• antidiabetic,
• anti-cancer
• cardioprotective activity
• neuroprotective,
• antidiabetic,
• anti-osteoporotic,
• estrogenic and antiestrogenic
• anxiolytic,
• analgesic
• antiallergenic

There are a vast range of activities attributed to this compound.

Anti-Cancer Properties

Various papers report activity on cancer cell lines from different organs such as breast, ovarian, gastric, lung, pancreatic cancer, and blood cancers and leukaemia. Kaempferol interferes with signalling pathways which leads to these cancer cell lines dying. In the breast cancer cell lines, the flavonol induces cell death or apoptosis via the mechanism using an extracellular signal regulated kinase (ERK) (Shields, 2017). Kaempferol also induces apoptosis in breast and ovarian cancer cells through activation of p53 and suppression of cell cycle genes.

Osteoporotic Activity

Osteoporosis is a developing problem in developing companies. Indeed, osteoporosis especially after the menopause and fractures associated with the conditions are a major issue. In one rat study, kaempferol was isolated from the seeds of Cuscuta chinensis (Nowak et al., 2017) and fed to rats whose production of estrogen was affected. Estrogen is a key hormone in the retention of bone structure and reducing levels of osteoporosis. Kaempferol was shown to reverse the affects of estrogen-deficiency in the loss of bone structure.

References

Nowak, B., Matuszewska, A., Nikodem, A., Filipiak, J., Landwójtowicz, M., Sadanowicz, E., … & Kowalski, P. (2017). Oral administration of kaempferol inhibits bone loss in rat model of ovariectomy-induced osteopenia. Pharmacological Reports, 69(5), pp. 1113-1119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pharep.2017.05.002

Shields, M. (2017) Chapter 14 – Chemotherapeutics. In: Pharmacognosy – Fundamentals, Applications and Strategies. Pp. 295-313 https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-802104-0.00014-7