Torquato Heron F V, Goettert Márcia I, Justo Giselle Z, Paredes-Gamero Edgar J
Departamento de Bioquímica, Universidade Federal de São Paulo (Campus São Paulo), São Paulo, Brazil.
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biotecnologia, Centro Universitário Univates, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
Curr Genomics. 2017 Apr;18(2):156-174. doi: 10.2174/1389202917666160803162309.
Medicinal plants are a plentiful source of bioactive molecules with much structural diversity. In cancer treatment, molecules obtained from plants represent an attractive alternative to other treatments because several plant-derived compounds have exhibited lower toxicity and higher selectivity against cancer cells. In this review, we focus on the possible application of bioactive molecules obtained from plants against more primitive cell populations in cancers, cancer stem cells. Cancer stem cells are present in several kinds of tumors and are responsible for recurrences and metastases. Common anti-cancer drugs exhibit lower effectiveness against cancer stem cells because of their biological features. However, recently discovered natural phytometabolites exert cytotoxic effects on this rare population of cells in cancers. Therefore, this review presents the latest research on promising compounds from plants that can act as antitumor drugs and that mainly affect stem cell populations in cancers.
药用植物是具有丰富结构多样性的生物活性分子的丰富来源。在癌症治疗中，从植物中获得的分子是其他治疗方法的有吸引力的替代方案，因为几种植物衍生的化合物对癌细胞表现出较低的毒性和较高的选择性。在这篇综述中，我们关注从植物中获得的生物活性分子对癌症中更原始的细胞群体，即癌症干细胞的可能应用。癌症干细胞存在于几种肿瘤中，并负责复发和转移。由于其生物学特性，常见的抗癌药物对癌症干细胞的有效性较低。然而，最近发现的天然植物代谢产物对癌症中这种罕见的细胞群体具有细胞毒性作用。因此，本综述介绍了来自植物的有前景的化合物的最新研究，这些化合物可作为抗肿瘤药物，主要影响癌症中的干细胞群体。
