Fascinating chemo preventive story of wogonin: A chance to hit on the head in cancer treatment.

Cancer, a global havoc is a group of debilitating diseases that strikes family as well as society. Cancer cases are drastically increasing these days. In spite of many therapies and surgical procedures available cancer is still difficult to control. These are due to limited effective therapies or targeted therapies. Natural products can produce lesser side effects to the normal cells which are the major demerit of chemotherapies and radiation. Wogonin, a natural product extracted from plant, Scutellaria baicalensis has been studied widely and found with a high caliber to tackle most of the cancers via several mechanisms that include intrinsic as well as extrinsic apoptosis signaling pathways, carcinogenesis diminution, telomerase activity inhibition, metastasis inhibition in the inflammatory microenvironment, anti-angiogenesis, cell growth inhibition and arrest of cell cycle, increased generation of H2O2 and accumulation of Ca2+ and also as an adjuvant along with anticancer drugs. This article discusses the role of wogonin in various cancers, its synergism with various drugs and the mechanism by which wogonin controls tumor growth.