Targeting Apoptosis Pathways in Cancer and Perspectives with Natural Compounds from Mother Nature

Abstract

Although the incidences are increasing day after day, scientists and researchers taken individually or by research group are trying to fight against cancer by several ways and also by different approaches and techniques. Sesquiterpenes, flavonoids, alkaloids, diterpenoids, and polyphenolic represent a large and diverse group of naturally occurring compounds found in a variety of fruits, vegetables, and medicinal plants with various anticancer properties. In this review, our aim is to give our perspective on the current status of the natural compounds belonging to these groups and discuss their natural sources, their anticancer activity, their molecular targets, and their mechanism of actions with specific emphasis on apoptosis pathways, which may help the further design and conduct of preclinical and clinical trials. Unlike pharmaceutical drugs, the selected natural compounds induce apoptosis by targeting multiple cellular signaling pathways including transcription factors, growth factors, tumor cell survival factors, inflammatory cytokines, protein kinases, and angiogenesis that are frequently deregulated in cancers and suggest that their simultaneous targeting by these compounds could result in efficacious and selective killing of cancer cells. This review suggests that they provide a novel opportunity for treatment of cancer, but clinical trials are still required to further validate them in cancer chemotherapy. Cancer Prev Res; 7(11);

Nanoencapsulation of natural triterpenoid celastrol for prostate cancer treatment

“…[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] Meanwhile, the natural products are valuable sources of bioactive compounds that have drawn a great deal of attention because of their ability to suppress cancers as well as to reduce the risk of cancer development. [33][34][35][36][37][38][39] Potential advantages of NP-based therapeutic products are the capability to revert unfavorable physicochemical properties of bioactive molecules (including phytochemicals/natural products) to desirable pharmacokinetic profiles, improve delivery of therapeutics across biological barriers and compartments, reduce intrinsic cytotoxicity, control release, and enhance therapeutic efficacy by selective delivery of therapeutics to biological targets. [40][41][42] In this context, the good pharmacological activity and the physicochemical limitations such as low solubility, low permeability, and poor bioavailability, therefore make CL a suitable candidate for nanoencapsulation.…”

Discrimination of the Effects of Doxorubicin on Two Different Breast Cancer Cell Lines on Account of Multidrug Resistance and Apoptosis

“…Apoptosis is programmed cell death characterized by the activation of catabolic enzymes, which is responsible for degradation of cellular components, shrinkage of the cell, condensation of chromatin and fragmentation of DNA [4,5] . It has been proved that multiple types of cancer including breast cancer are developed due to malfunctioning of the genes, which code antiapoptotic proteins, apoptosis inhibitors or tumor suppressors [6,7] .…”

Heptaphylline Induces Apoptosis in Human Colon Adenocarcinoma Cells through Bid and Akt/NF-κB (p65) Pathways

“…The deregulation of apoptosis is the cause of diseases, including cancers, autoimmune diseases and neurodegenerative disorders (Okada and Mak, 2004;Sankari et al, 2012). Apoptosis is also considered the basis for cancer treatment to target cancerous cells but not normal cells in order to limit the cytotoxicity from chemotherapy (Debatin et al, 2004;Irene et al, 2005;Millimouno et al, 2014).…”