Elbadawi Mohamed, Efferth Thomas
Department of Pharmaceutical Biology, Institute of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany.
Handb Exp Pharmacol. 2025;287:95-121. doi: 10.1007/164_2024_716.
Despite more than 200 approved anticancer agents, cancer remains a leading cause of death worldwide due to disease complexity, tumour heterogeneity, drug toxicity, and the emergence of drug resistance. Accordingly, the development of chemotherapeutic agents with higher efficacy, a better safety profile, and the capability of bypassing drug resistance would be a cornerstone in cancer therapy. Natural products have played a pivotal role in the field of drug discovery, especially for the pharmacotherapy of cancer, infectious, and chronic diseases. Owing to their distinctive structures and multiple mechanistic activities, natural products and their derivatives have been utilized for decades in cancer treatment protocols. In this review, we delve into the potential of natural products as anticancer agents by targeting cancer's hallmarks, including sustained proliferative signalling, evading growth suppression, resisting apoptosis and cell death, enabling replicative immortality, inducing angiogenesis, and activating invasion and metastasis. We highlight the molecular mechanisms of some natural products, in vivo studies, and promising clinical trials. This review emphasizes the significance of natural products in fighting cancer and the need for further studies to uncover their fully therapeutic potential.
尽管有200多种已获批的抗癌药物，但由于疾病复杂性、肿瘤异质性、药物毒性以及耐药性的出现，癌症仍是全球主要的死亡原因。因此，开发具有更高疗效、更好安全性且能绕过耐药性的化疗药物将是癌症治疗的基石。天然产物在药物发现领域发挥了关键作用，尤其是在癌症、传染病和慢性病的药物治疗方面。由于其独特的结构和多种作用机制，天然产物及其衍生物已在癌症治疗方案中使用了数十年。在这篇综述中，我们通过针对癌症的标志，包括持续的增殖信号、逃避生长抑制、抵抗细胞凋亡和细胞死亡、实现复制永生、诱导血管生成以及激活侵袭和转移，深入探讨天然产物作为抗癌药物的潜力。我们重点介绍了一些天然产物的分子机制、体内研究以及有前景的临床试验。这篇综述强调了天然产物在抗癌方面的重要性以及进一步研究以揭示其全部治疗潜力的必要性。
