Submit to IJMS Review for IJMS Propose a Special Issue

Journal Menu

Journal Browser

Research into Using Natural-Product-Related Medicines for Cancer

Print Special Issue Flyer
Special Issue Editors
Special Issue Information
Keywords
Published Papers

A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Oncology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2023) | Viewed by 7023

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Seong-Gyu Ko

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Preventive Medicine, College of Korean Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea
Interests: cancer; herbal medicine; herbal extracts; Korean medicine; natural product; cancer therapy; chemotherapy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

According to the World Health Organization, cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, having accounted for nearly 10 million deaths in 2020. With the rapidly growing number of cancer patients, less harmful and less toxic therapies have been recently introduced. Thus, research regarding this topic has been exceedingly active.

Significantly, nutrition and nutrition-based products have been sought to be utilized as less damaging cancer therapies. That said, it is noteworthy that various natural products have shown positive effects as anticancer agents; in addition, several anticancer therapeutics are derived from natural sources. Therefore, enormous efforts have been made to discover new cancer drugs from natural products.

This Special Issue aims to highlight the current situation regarding the use of natural-product-related medicines for cancer treatments, therapies, and interventions that might play a key role in helping patients throughout the course of treatment. Original research articles, reviews, or commentaries/perspectives that cover innovative nutritional cancer therapies or nutrition-based therapies combined with conventional cancer treatments are welcome. Importantly, the exact active ingredient of a natural product extract must be reported in the submitted research manuscript, as papers that describe the effects of mixed extraction from natural products will not be accepted.

Prof. Dr. Seong-Gyu Ko
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

natural product
herbal medicine
nutrition therapies and interventions
nutrition combined with conventional therapies
cancer
chemotherapy

Published Papers (4 papers)

Download All Papers

Research

17 pages, 3937 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Combined Metabolically Oriented Effect of Fucoidan from the Brown Alga Saccharina cichorioides and Its Carboxymethylated Derivative with 2-Deoxy-D-Glucose on Human Melanoma Cells

by Olesya S. Malyarenko, Roza V. Usoltseva, Artem S. Silchenko, Anastasiya O. Zueva and Svetlana P. Ermakova

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(15), 12050; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijms241512050 - 27 Jul 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1040

Abstract

Melanoma is the most aggressive and treatment-resistant form of skin cancer. It is phenotypically characterized by aerobic glycolysis that provides higher proliferative rates and resistance to cell death. The glycolysis regulation in melanoma cells by means of effective metabolic modifiers represents a promising therapeutic opportunity. This work aimed to assess the metabolically oriented effect and mechanism of action of fucoidan from the brown alga Saccharina cichorioides (ScF) and its carboxymethylated derivative (ScFCM) in combination with 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) on the proliferation and colony formation of human melanoma cell lines SK-MEL-28, SK-MEL-5, and RPMI-7951. The metabolic profile of melanoma cells was determined by the glucose uptake and Lactate-Glo^TM assays. The effect of 2-DG, ScF, ScFCM, and their combination on the proliferation, colony formation, and activity of glycolytic enzymes was assessed by the MTS, soft agar, and Western blot methods, respectively. When applied separately, 2-DG (IC₅₀ at 72 h = 8.7 mM), ScF (IC₅₀ at 72 h > 800 µg/mL), and ScFCM (IC₅₀ at 72 h = 573.9 μg/mL) inhibited the proliferation and colony formation of SK-MEL-28 cells to varying degrees. ScF or ScFCM enhanced the inhibiting effect of 2-DG at low, non-toxic concentrations via the downregulation of Glut 1, Hexokinase II, PKM2, LDHA, and pyruvate dehydrogenase activities. The obtained results emphasize the potential of the use of 2-DG in combination with algal fucoidan or its derivative as metabolic modifiers for inhibition of melanoma SK-MEL-28 cell proliferation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research into Using Natural-Product-Related Medicines for Cancer)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

15 pages, 4432 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Physapruin A Exerts Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress to Trigger Breast Cancer Cell Apoptosis via Oxidative Stress

by Tzu-Jung Yu, Jun-Ping Shiau, Jen-Yang Tang, Ammad Ahmad Farooqi, Yuan-Bin Cheng, Ming-Feng Hou, Chia-Hung Yen and Hsueh-Wei Chang

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(10), 8853; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijms24108853 - 16 May 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1550

Abstract

Physalis plants are commonly used traditional medicinal herbs, and most of their extracts containing withanolides show anticancer effects. Physapruin A (PHA), a withanolide isolated from P. peruviana, shows antiproliferative effects on breast cancer cells involving oxidative stress, apoptosis, and autophagy. However, the other oxidative stress-associated response, such as endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, and its participation in regulating apoptosis in PHA-treated breast cancer cells remain unclear. This study aims to explore the function of oxidative stress and ER stress in modulating the proliferation and apoptosis of breast cancer cells treated with PHA. PHA induced a more significant ER expansion and aggresome formation of breast cancer cells (MCF7 and MDA-MB-231). The mRNA and protein levels of ER stress-responsive genes (IRE1α and BIP) were upregulated by PHA in breast cancer cells. The co-treatment of PHA with the ER stress-inducer (thapsigargin, TG), i.e., TG/PHA, demonstrated synergistic antiproliferation, reactive oxygen species generation, subG1 accumulation, and apoptosis (annexin V and caspases 3/8 activation) as examined by ATP assay, flow cytometry, and western blotting. These ER stress responses, their associated antiproliferation, and apoptosis changes were partly alleviated by the N-acetylcysteine, an oxidative stress inhibitor. Taken together, PHA exhibits ER stress-inducing function to promote antiproliferation and apoptosis of breast cancer cells involving oxidative stress. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research into Using Natural-Product-Related Medicines for Cancer)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

15 pages, 4119 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Anti-Cancer Effects of Artesunate in Human 3D Tumor Models of Different Complexity

by Marlene Niederreiter, Julia Klein, Kerstin Arndt, Jens Werner and Barbara Mayer

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(9), 7844; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijms24097844 - 25 Apr 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2123

Abstract

The anti-malaria drug Artesunate (ART) shows strong anti-cancer effects in vitro; however, it shows only marginal treatment results in clinical cancer studies. In this study, ART was tested in preclinical 3D cancer models of increasing complexity using clinically relevant peak plasma concentrations to obtain further information for translation into clinical use. ART reduced cell viability in HCT-116 and HT-29 derived cancer spheroids (p < 0.001). HCT-116 spheroids responded dose-dependently, while HT-29 spheroids were affected more strongly by ART than by cytostatics (p < 0.001). HCT-116 spheroids were chemo-sensitized by ART (p < 0.001). In patient-derived cancer spheroids (PDCS), ART led to inhibition of cell viability in 84.62% of the 39 samples tested, with a mean inhibitory effect of 13.87%. Viability reduction of ART was 2-fold weaker than cytostatic monotherapies (p = 0.028). Meanwhile, tumor-stimulation of up to 16.30% was observed in six (15.38%) PDCS-models. In 15 PDCS samples, ART modulated chemotherapies in combined testing, eight of which showed chemo-stimulation (maximum of 36.90%) and seven chemo-inhibition (up to 16.95%). These results demonstrate that ART’s anti-cancer efficacy depends on the complexity of the tumor model used. This emphasizes that cancer treatment with ART should be evaluated before treatment of the individual patient to ensure its benefits and prevent unwanted effects. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research into Using Natural-Product-Related Medicines for Cancer)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

12 pages, 13751 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Curcuminoid EF24 in Combination with TRAIL Reduces Human Renal Cancer Cell Migration by Decreasing MMP-2/MMP-9 Activity through a Reduction in H₂O₂

by Verónica Ibáñez Gaspar and Tara McMorrow

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(2), 1043; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijms24021043 - 05 Jan 2023

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1459

Abstract

Cancer cells present high levels of oxidative stress, and although an increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS), such as H₂O₂, can lead to apoptosis, it can also induce cell invasion and metastasis. As the increase in ROS can lead to an increase in the expression of MMP-2 and MMP-9, thus causing the degradation of the extracellular matrix, an increase in the ROS H₂O₂ might have an impact on MMP-2/MMP-9 activity. The natural compound curcumin has shown some anticancer effects, although its bioavailability hinders its therapeutic potential. However, curcumin and its analogues were shown to resensitize kidney cancer cells to TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL)-induced apoptosis. This study shows that the curcuminoid EF24 in combination with TRAIL increases peroxidase activity in the renal adenocarcinoma cell line ACHN, reducing the level of intracellular H₂O₂ and MMP-2/MMP-9 activity, a mechanism that is also observed after treatment with curcumin and TRAIL. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research into Using Natural-Product-Related Medicines for Cancer)

► Show Figures