Bioactive peptides: an alternative therapeutic approach for cancer management

Abstract

Cancer is still considered a lethal disease worldwide and the patients’ quality of life is affected by major side effects of the treatments including post-surgery complications, chemo-, and radiation therapy. Recently, new therapeutic approaches were considered globally for increasing conventional cancer therapy efficacy and decreasing the adverse effects. Bioactive peptides obtained from plant and animal sources have drawn increased attention because of their potential as complementary therapy. This review presents a contemporary examination of bioactive peptides derived from natural origins with demonstrated anticancer, ant invasion, and immunomodulation properties. For example, peptides derived from common beans, chickpeas, wheat germ, and mung beans exhibited antiproliferative and toxic effects on cancer cells, favoring cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. On the other hand, peptides from marine sources showed the potential for inhibiting tumor growth and metastasis. In this review we will discuss these data highlighting the potential befits of these approaches and the need of further investigations to fully characterize their potential in clinics.

Integrating In Silico and In Vitro Approaches to Identify Natural Peptides with Selective Cytotoxicity against Cancer Cells

“…The anticancer mechanisms and effects of ACPs can differ significantly across various cancer cell lines due to the unique biological characteristics and microenvironments of these cells. Many studies have demonstrated that ACPs can exert a range of anticancer activities, such as inhibiting cell migration, suppressing angiogenesis, displaying antioxidant properties, halting cell proliferation, inducing apoptosis, and exerting cytotoxic effects [57,58]. This diversity in action mechanisms results in ACPs having selective efficacy against different types of cancer cells.…”

Harnessing the power of bee venom for therapeutic and regenerative medical applications: an updated review

“…The outcomes are consistent with melittin activating calcium channels, increasing Ca 2+ concentrations inside the cells, and calcium-responsive CaMKII ( Balasubramani et al, 2023 ). It has also been reported that BV and melittin inhibit the malignant expansion of cells by triggering caspases (3 and 9) and suppressing NF-B signaling ( Ghadiri et al, 2024 ). It has been proven that BV inhibits proliferation and causes apoptotic cell death by activating death receptors (DR4 and DR5) ( Khaliq et al, 2022 ).…”