Natural Products for Cancer Therapy: A Review of Their Mechanism of Actions and Toxicity in the Past Decade.

The ethnopharmacological information gathered over many centuries and the presence of diverse metabolites have made the medicinal plants as the prime source of drugs. Despite the positive attributes of natural products, there are many questions pertaining to their mechanism of actions and molecular targets that impede their development as therapeutic agents. One of the major challenges in cancer research is the toxicity exerted by investigational agents towards the host.

Plant-Based Biosynthesis of Copper/Copper Oxide Nanoparticles: An Update on Their Applications in Biomedicine, Mechanisms, and Toxicity.

Plants are rich in phytoconstituent biomolecules that served as a good source of medicine. More recently, they have been employed in synthesizing metal/metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) due to their capping and reducing properties. This green synthesis approach is environmentally friendly and allows the production of the desired NPs in different sizes and shapes by manipulating parameters during the synthesis process.

1'-Acetoxychavicol acetate inhibits NLRP3-dependent inflammasome activation via mitochondrial ROS suppression.

The nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-like receptor (NLR) family pyrin domain containing (NLRP) 3 inflammasome is a multiprotein complex that triggers Caspase-1-mediated IL-1β production and pyroptosis, and its dysregulation is associated with the pathogenesis of inflammatory diseases. 1'-Acetoxychavicol acetate (ACA) is a natural compound in the rhizome of tropical ginger Alpinia species with anti-microbial, anti-allergic and anti-cancer properties. In this study, we found that ACA suppressed NLRP3 inflammasome activation in mouse bone marrow-derived macrophages and human THP-1 monocytes.

Development and Evaluation of 1'-Acetoxychavicol Acetate (ACA)-Loaded Nanostructured Lipid Carriers for Prostate Cancer Therapy.

1'-acetoxychavicol acetate (ACA) extracted from the rhizomes of Griff (Zingiberaceae) has been shown to deregulate the NF-ĸB signaling pathway and induce apoptosis-mediated cell death in many cancer types. However, ACA is a hydrophobic ester, with poor solubility in an aqueous medium, limited bioavailability, and nonspecific targeting in vivo. To address these problems, ACA was encapsulated in a nanostructured lipid carrier (NLC) anchored with plerixafor octahydrochloride (AMD3100) to promote targeted delivery towards C-X-C chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4)-expressing prostate cancer cells.

MicroRNA-6744-5p promotes anoikis in breast cancer and directly targets NAT1 enzyme.

Anoikis is apoptosis that is induced when cells detach from the extracellular matrix and neighboring cells. As anoikis serves as a regulatory barrier, cancer cells often acquire resistance towards anoikis during tumorigenesis to become metastatic. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short strand RNA molecules that regulate genes post-transcriptionally by binding to mRNAs and reducing the expression of its target genes.