Abstract:Crocin is a chemical extraction from saffron and it is the most important kind of pigment of saffron. Recently, the research on cervical cancer, bladder cancer, leukemia, tongue squamous cell carcinoma, colon cancer, pancreatic cancer shows that crocin has a role of inducing apoptosis of the tumor cells by activating caspase-3 and regulating the ratio of bcl-2/bax as wll as up- regulating the expression of surviving. Crocin has a strong inhibition effect on tumor proliferationby inducing cell cycle arrestthrough down-regulating the expression of cyclin D1 andup-regulating the expression of p27^kip. Crocin also can exert antitumor effects by liposome encapsulation to enhance cytotoxic effect. Crocin is a kind of effective chemical for tumor treatment and prevention with no significant toxico- and by-effectin vivo, and is likely to be used as an anticancer drug clinically in the future.

Key words:font-size: 12pt,mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt,mso-ansi-language: EN-US,mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN,mso-bidi-language: AR-SA,mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'" lang="EN-US">Neoplasms,font-size: 12pt,mso-ansi-language: EN-US,mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN,mso-bidi-language: AR-SA,mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'" lang="EN-US">Cell cycle,font-size: 12pt,mso-ansi-language: EN-US,mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN,mso-bidi-language: AR-SA,mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'" lang="EN-US">Apoptosis