Colorectal cancer and medicinal plants: Principle findings from recent studies

•Current chemotherapy has strong limitations due to the side effects and resistance.•Medicinal plants provide molecules with anticolorectal cancer activities, both in vitro and in vivo.•Apoptosis, autophagy and cell cycle arrest are induced by the natural products.•Different signaling pathways are activated or inhibited by the herbal products. Colorectal cancer is one of the most frequent malignancies in the world. Although recent advances in chemotherapy have improved management and survival of colorectal cancer patients, side effects and resistance to chemotherapy have shown the limitations of current chemotherapy and led to the search for alternative treatments. In this context, medicinal plants provide a large number of molecules with proven cytotoxic and apoptogenic activities against several types of cancers including colorectal cancer. These molecules belong to various phytochemical families and trigger different signaling pathways. Here, we review the recent findings regarding the anti-colorectal cancer activities of several plants, both in vitro and in vivo, and the phytochemical molecules possibly responsible for these activities. Besides, their effects on several cancer signaling pathways are discussed. This review highlights the importance of medicinal plants as promising sources of lead anti-colorectal molecules.