**1.7 Anticancer potential of potato glycoalkaloids**

Despite being considered potentially toxic, recent studies over the past decade suggest that glycoalkaloids may also have beneficial effects under certain doses and conditions of use. These potential applications include anticancer properties, anti-inflammatory [40–43], antinociceptive [44], antipyretic [40, 45], anticholesterol [25], antifungal, and antibacterial effects [46]. Many studies carried out on glycoalkaloids and their potential effects on cancer cell proliferation rate, cell cycle distribution, and apoptosis induction have confirmed these findings, for example, solasodine and solanidine on osteosarcoma cells [47]. The anticarcinogenic properties of pure α-chaconine and α-solanine obtained from potatoes were examined. The compounds reduced the proliferation of cervical, liver, lymphoma, and stomach cancer cells in a concentration-dependent manner. It is worth mentioning that α-chaconine was found more potent than α-solanine in terms of its anticarcinogenic effects [48].

**Figure 2.**

*(A) Structure of the parent structure of potato glycoalkaloids solanidine, (B) chemical composition of α-solanine, and (C) chemical composition of α-chaconine.*

α-Chaconine demonstrated very potent activity against prostate and colon cancer cell lines and induced apoptosis *via* caspase-dependent and caspase-independent pathways [33, 49]. α-Chaconine is suggested to exert the cytotoxic effect through the suppression of PI3K/Akt and ERα signaling pathways. Research conducted on the RL95-2 human endometrial cancer cell line indicated that the genes encoding Akt and ERα exhibited reduced expression and activity [50].

Studies performed on AML-193 acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells demonstrated that α-solanine induced morphological changes in cancer cells and regulated the expression of Bax and Bcl-2, well-established markers of apoptosis. Specifically, α-solanine increased the expression of Bax and miR-16. miR-16 is known to target Bcl-2, leading to an epigenetic regulation of Bcl-2 expression [51]. α-Solanine exhibited a more significant cytotoxic effect on human breast cancer MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells compared to cycloheximide. Furthermore, α-Solanine can induce apoptosis and cell cycle arrest in the S phase in MCF-7 cells [52]. α-Solanine induced JNK-dependent apoptosis in HepG2 HCC cells while inhibited proliferation through downregulation of HDAC1 [53]. α-Solanine induces oxidative stress in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) HepG2 cells and regulates appropriate miRNAs controlling the NF-κB pathway, thus increasing NF-κB expression [53, 54].

The antiproliferative activity of glycoalkaloids is accompanied by anti-invasive properties. In the case of α-chaconine and α-solanine, they were found to exhibit an antimetastatic effect against melanoma, lung, and esophageal cancer cells. Both compounds achieved this by reducing the expression of MMP2/9 through targeting the primary oncogenic pathways [55–57]. What is particularly noteworthy is that in the case of A549 cells, a significant reduction in cell viability was observed when treated with doses higher than 1.5 μg mL−1 [56]. α-Chaconine exhibited anti-invasive and antiangiogenic effects in bovine aortic endothelial cells (BAECs) through reducing MMP2 activity, this might be attributed to the downregulation of NF-κB levels, PI3K, *Perspective Chapter: Integrated Network Pharmacology and Multiomics Approach to Elucidate… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112789*

and JNK phosphorylation [58]. α-Solanine exhibited similar effects and responses in human melanoma cell line A2058 [59].

#### **1.8 Potato glycoalkaloids and drug discovery**

There is currently a lack of research to support the use of glycoalkaloids as a cancer treatment target and the underlying biological mechanisms. As a result, further investigation and discussion on this topic are required. Network pharmacology is an interdisciplinary approach that integrates medicine, pharmacology, network biology, systems biology, and computer science. It exposes complex disease processes, which may be used to generate successful therapeutic approaches based on a thorough understanding of the systems involved [60–66]. Network pharmacology has been proven to be an effective tool for the acquisition of comprehensive and systematic insights into the polypharmacological properties of herbal medicines, and it is widely employed to investigate the therapeutic targets that are responsible for their pharmacological effects in diverse diseases, such as cancer [67–69]. Therefore, in this study, we adopted a network pharmacology approach to establish a network of the common α-solanine and α-chaconine cancer targets and their associated pathway. A network analysis of protein-protein interactions (PPI) was conducted to identify influential hub targets. Additionally, gene enrichment analysis of these target genes was performed using gene ontology (GO) and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG).
