Natural Products With Anticancer Activity: A Review of in Vitro, in Vivo and Molecular Docking Assays

Abstract

Natural products are being increasingly used in scientific research in an attempt to obtain new drugs for current diseases. Most of the time these substances are presenting good results, besides presenting some positive points as easy acquisition, low cost and less or none adverse effect. In this sense, the aim of this research is to perform a bibliographic survey on in vitro, in vivo and in silico studies of natural products to prove their antitumor activity. The study is a review research that used 31 articles to highlight the scientific findings on the antitumor activity of natural products and their derivatives. Articles were included in the time estimate between 2015 - 2021 (last six years). The search and selection of the reference studies was performed in Scielo, Science Direct, PubMed and Google Academic databases. The literature shows that natural compounds have several activities against several types of cancer, such as breast, prostate, liver, pancreas, colorectal cancer, among others. The studies found suggest that the diversity of existing compounds may trigger important steps towards the optimization of new strategies for the formulation of drugs for cancer chemotherapy. Thus, new studies may be important to elucidate even more specifically the effects of these compounds isolated and in association in vivo for the discovery of new treatments for cancer.