Wang Steven, Penchala Sravan, Prabhu Sunil, Wang Jeffrey, Huang Ying
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, Western University of Health Sciences, 309 E. Second Street, Pomona, CA 91766, USA.
Curr Drug Discov Technol. 2010 Mar;7(1):67-75. doi: 10.2174/157016310791162794.
Cancer is the second leading cause of death, for which current therapeutic approaches are still very limited. Chemoprevention is an important approach to decreasing cancer morbidity and mortality by the use of non-toxic natural or synthetic substances to reverse the processes of initiation and subsequent progression of cancer. A substantial amount of evidence from human, animal and cell line studies has shown that many herbal products used for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) can exert chemopreventive effects. The underlying theory for TCM to treat or prevent cancer is to bring the patient back to a healthy state by modifying multiple cancer-causing events. Since carcinogenesis involves multiple abnormal genes/pathways, using TCM in cancer chemoprevention may be superior to the agents targeting a single molecular target alone. However, before TCM can be accepted universally as complementary and alternative medicine for cancer treatment and prevention, it is crucial to understand the molecular basis for their effects. This review highlights several known molecular mechanisms of selected TCM in chemoprevention. Many TCM products or single active components have been reported to inhibit a variety of processes in cancer cell growth, invasion and metastasis by modulating a wide range of molecular targets, including cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), nuclear factor-Kappa B (NF-kappaB) and nuclear factor erythroid 2 -related factor 2 (Nrf2)-mediated antioxidant signaling pathways. The TCM and their active components with potent chemopreventive effects can be considered as promising lead agents for the design of more effective and less toxic agents for cancer chemoprevention.
癌症是第二大致死原因，目前针对癌症的治疗方法仍然非常有限。化学预防是一种重要的方法，通过使用无毒的天然或合成物质来逆转癌症的起始和后续进展过程，从而降低癌症的发病率和死亡率。来自人体、动物和细胞系研究的大量证据表明，许多用于传统中医（TCM）的草药产品具有化学预防作用。中医治疗或预防癌症的基本理论是通过改变多种致癌事件使患者恢复到健康状态。由于致癌作用涉及多个异常基因/途径，在癌症化学预防中使用中医可能优于仅针对单一分子靶点的药物。然而，在中医能够被普遍接受为癌症治疗和预防的补充和替代医学之前，了解其作用的分子基础至关重要。本综述重点介绍了所选中医在化学预防中的几种已知分子机制。许多中医产品或单一活性成分已被报道通过调节多种分子靶点，包括环氧合酶-2（COX-2）、核因子-κB（NF-κB）和核因子红细胞2相关因子2（Nrf2）介导的抗氧化信号通路，来抑制癌细胞生长、侵袭和转移的各种过程。具有强大化学预防作用的中医及其活性成分可被视为设计更有效、毒性更小的癌症化学预防药物的有前景的先导药物。
