Tumor microenvironment: a prospective target of natural alkaloids for cancer treatment

Abstract

Malignant tumor has become one of the major diseases that seriously endangers human health. Numerous studies have demonstrated that tumor microenvironment (TME) is closely associated with patient prognosis. Tumor growth and progression are strongly dependent on its surrounding tumor microenvironment, because the optimal conditions originated from stromal elements are required for cancer cell proliferation, invasion, metastasis and drug resistance. The tumor microenvironment is an environment rich in immune/inflammatory cells and accompanied by a continuous, gradient of hypoxia and pH. Overcoming immunosuppressive environment and boosting anti-tumor immunity may be the key to the prevention and treatment of cancer. Most traditional Chinese medicine have been proved to have good anti-tumor activity, and they have the advantages of better therapeutic effect and few side effects in the treatment of malignant tumors. An increasing number of studies are giving evidence that alkaloids extracted from traditional Chinese medicine possess a significant anticancer efficiency via regulating a variety of tumor-related genes, pathways and other mechanisms. This paper reviews the anti-tumor effect of alkaloids targeting tumor microenvironment, and further reveals its anti-tumor mechanism through the effects of alkaloids on different components in tumor microenvironment.

Oxymatrine ameliorates myocardial injury by inhibiting oxidative stress and apoptosis via the Nrf2/HO-1 and JAK/STAT pathways in type 2 diabetic rats

“…Conversely, the overt anti-inflammatory activity of OMT revealed an inhibitory effect on p-JAK2, p-STAT3, and TGF-β1 [ 46 ]. OMT was found to downregulate JAK2 and STAT3 phosphorylation in multiple pathophysiological states [ 47 , 48 ]. Thus, the JAK2/STAT3 pathway may be considered to be of vital importance in ameliorating the effects of OMT against diabetic cardiomyopathy.…”

Molecular subtypes based on metabolic genes are potential biomarkers for predicting prognosis and immune responses of clear cell renal cell carcinoma

“…As for TME and tumor-infiltrating immune cells, tumors were confronted with a complex TME, mainly consisting of cancer cells, stromal cells, tumor-infiltrating immune cells, extracellular matrix, or blood vessels [29]. A growing number of research sug-gested that TME and tumor-infiltrating immune cells could predict the prognosis and the therapeutic responses of chemotherapy or immunotherapy for multiple cancers [30][31][32]. Our results found that 17 out of 22 tumor-infiltrating immune cells by "CIBERSORT", 27 out of 28 immune cell scores by "ssGSEA", nine of 10 immune cell scores by "MCP-counter", ESTIMATEScore, stromalScore, and immuneScore by "ESTIMATE", were all differently expressed in three ccRCC metabolic subtypes.…”

Natural compounds: Wnt pathway inhibitors with therapeutic potential in lung cancer

“…Natural alkaloids are regarded as valuable sources of anti-cancer medicines because they not only exhibit potent anti-tumor effects when taken alone but also when combined with other anti-tumor agents ( Luo et al, 2021 ). Consequently, alkaloids have attracted considerable interest for tumor treatment.…”