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Pharmaceutics
Special Issues
Natural Products for Anticancer Application
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Natural Products for Anticancer Application

A special issue of Pharmaceutics (ISSN 1999-4923). This special issue belongs to the section "Biopharmaceutics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2024 | Viewed by 3919

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Alessandro Maugeri

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Guest Editor
Department of Health Sciences, University "Magna Græcia" of Catanzaro, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
Interests: natural products; molecular pharmacology; cancer; inflammation; neuroprotection
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Santa Cirmi

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Chemical, Biological, Pharmaceutical and Environmental Sciences, University of Messina, 98166 Messina, Italy
Interests: natural products; molecular pharmacology; cancer; inflammation; neuroprotection
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Michele Navarra

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Chemical, Biological, Pharmaceutical and Environmental Sciences, University of Messina, Viale Annunziata, I-98168 Messina, Italy
Interests: natural products; molecular pharmacology; cancer; inflammation; neuroprotection
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Thomas Efferth

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Guest Editor
Department of Pharmaceutical Biology, Institute of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences, Johannes Gutenberg University, Staudinger Weg 5, 55128 Mainz, Germany
Interests: natural products; molecular pharmacology; cancer; drug resistance; genome-wide profiling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to contribute an article to a Special Issue of Pharmaceutics called “Natural Products for Anticancer Application”.

Cancer still represents one of the most alarming burdens of our society, despite the unceasing advances achieved by the scientific community. Therefore, novel strategies able to prevent and/or manage neoplasms are constantly sought after to hamper their onset and development.

The plant kingdom has long been a remarkable source of countless chemical substances with noteworthy pharmacological properties, including anticancer ones. Natural remedies are now being consumed as part of a method for strengthening our defenses against cellular degeneration, eventually potentially leading to the initiation of cells into cancerous ones. Moreover, the possible synergism of components constituting them can be exploited to achieve stronger effects.

This Special Issue aims to assemble recent scientific evidence on the anticancer properties of natural products, both as single phytochemicals and phytocomplexes, after their complete qualiquantitative chemical characterization, studied in both preclinical and clinical settings.

In this Special Issue, original research articles, reviews systematic reviews, and meta-analyses are all welcome.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Alessandro Maugeri
Dr. Santa Cirmi
Prof. Dr. Michele Navarra
Prof. Dr. Thomas Efferth
Guest Editors

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. Pharmaceutics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). 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 products
  • cancer
  • plant extracts
  • phytochemicals
  • preclinical
  • clinical

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 3357 KiB  
Article
Antimutagenicity and Antioxidant Activity of Castanea sativa Mill. Bark Extract
by Sofia Gasperini, Giulia Greco, Sabrina Angelini, Patrizia Hrelia, Carmela Fimognari and Monia Lenzi
Pharmaceutics 2023, 15(10), 2465; https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics15102465 - 14 Oct 2023
Viewed by 926
Abstract
Castanea sativa Mill. (Cs), a plant traditionally employed in nutrition and to treat various respiratory and gastrointestinal infections, possesses cancer chemopreventive characteristics. In particular, Cs bark extract previously demonstrated antiproliferative and pro-apoptotic activities against a leukemic lymphoblastic cell line. Starting from this evidence, [...] Read more.
Castanea sativa Mill. (Cs), a plant traditionally employed in nutrition and to treat various respiratory and gastrointestinal infections, possesses cancer chemopreventive characteristics. In particular, Cs bark extract previously demonstrated antiproliferative and pro-apoptotic activities against a leukemic lymphoblastic cell line. Starting from this evidence, the aim of this paper was to investigate the possibility to affect also the earlier phases of the carcinogenic process by evaluating Cs bark extract’s antimutagenic properties, in particular using the “In Vitro Mammalian Cell Micronucleus Test” on TK6 cells performed by flow cytometry. For this purpose, since an ideal chemopreventive agent should be virtually nontoxic, the first step was to exclude the extract’s genotoxicity. Afterwards, the antimutagenic effect of the extract was evaluated against two known mutagens, the clastogen mitomycin C (MMC) and the aneugen vinblastine (VINB). Our results indicate that Cs bark extract protected cells from MMC-induced damage (micronuclei frequency fold increase reduction from 2.9 to 1.8) but not from VINB. Moreover, we demonstrated that Cs bark extract was a strong antioxidant and significantly reduced MMC-induced ROS levels by over 2 fold. Overall, our research supports the assumption that Cs bark extract can counteract MMC mutagenicity by possibly scavenging ROS production. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Natural Products for Anticancer Application)
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20 pages, 6731 KiB  
Article
The Novel Artemisinin Dimer Isoniazide ELI-XXIII-98-2 Induces c-MYC Inhibition, DNA Damage, and Autophagy in Leukemia Cells
by Mohamed Elbadawi, Joelle C. Boulos, Mona Dawood, Min Zhou, Waseem Gul, Mahmoud A. ElSohly, Sabine M. Klauck and Thomas Efferth
Pharmaceutics 2023, 15(4), 1107; https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics15041107 - 30 Mar 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1834
Abstract
The proto-oncogenic transcription factor c-MYC plays a pivotal role in the development of tumorigenesis, cellular proliferation, and the control of cell death. Its expression is frequently altered in many cancer types, including hematological malignancies such as leukemia. The dimer isoniazide ELI-XXIII-98-2 is a [...] Read more.
The proto-oncogenic transcription factor c-MYC plays a pivotal role in the development of tumorigenesis, cellular proliferation, and the control of cell death. Its expression is frequently altered in many cancer types, including hematological malignancies such as leukemia. The dimer isoniazide ELI-XXIII-98-2 is a derivative of the natural product artemisinin, with two artemisinin molecules and an isoniazide moiety as a linker in between them. In this study, we aimed to study the anticancer activity and the molecular mechanisms of this dimer molecule in drug-sensitive CCRF-CEM leukemia cells and their corresponding multidrug-resistant CEM/ADR5000 sub-line. The growth inhibitory activity was studied using the resazurin assay. To reveal the molecular mechanisms underlying the growth inhibitory activity, we performed in silico molecular docking, followed by several in vitro approaches such as the MYC reporter assay, microscale thermophoresis, microarray analyses, immunoblotting, qPCR, and comet assay. The artemisinin dimer isoniazide showed a potent growth inhibitory activity in CCRF-CEM but a 12-fold cross-resistance in multidrug-resistant CEM/ADR5000 cells. The molecular docking of artemisinin dimer isoniazide with c-MYC revealed a good binding (lowest binding energy of −9.84 ± 0.3 kcal/mol) and a predicted inhibition constant (pKi) of 66.46 ± 29.5 nM, which was confirmed by microscale thermophoresis and MYC reporter cell assays. Furthermore, c-MYC expression was downregulated by this compound in microarray hybridization and Western blotting analyses. Finally, the artemisinin dimer isoniazide modulated the expression of autophagy markers (LC3B and p62) and the DNA damage marker pH2AX, indicating the stimulation of both autophagy and DNA damage, respectively. Additionally, DNA double-strand breaks were observed in the alkaline comet assay. DNA damage, apoptosis, and autophagy induction could be attributed to the inhibition of c-MYC by ELI-XXIII-98-2. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Natural Products for Anticancer Application)
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Review

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24 pages, 835 KiB  
Review
Therapeutic Effects of Essential Oils and Their Bioactive Compounds on Prostate Cancer Treatment
by Leticia Santos Pimentel, Luciana Machado Bastos, Luiz Ricardo Goulart and Lígia Nunes de Morais Ribeiro
Pharmaceutics 2024, 16(5), 583; https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics16050583 - 24 Apr 2024
Viewed by 176
Abstract
Since prostate cancer (PCa) relies on limited therapies, more effective alternatives are required. Essential oils (EOs) and their bioactive compounds are natural products that have many properties including anticancer activity. This review covers studies published between 2000 and 2023 and discusses the anti-prostate [...] Read more.
Since prostate cancer (PCa) relies on limited therapies, more effective alternatives are required. Essential oils (EOs) and their bioactive compounds are natural products that have many properties including anticancer activity. This review covers studies published between 2000 and 2023 and discusses the anti-prostate cancer mechanisms of the EOs from several plant species and their main bioactive compounds. It also provides a critical perspective regarding the challenges to be overcome until they reach the market. EOs from chamomile, cinnamon, Citrus species, turmeric, Cymbopogon species, ginger, lavender, Mentha species, rosemary, Salvia species, thyme and other species have been tested in different PCa cell lines and have shown excellent results, including the inhibition of cell growth and migration, the induction of apoptosis, modulation in the expression of apoptotic and anti-apoptotic genes and the suppression of angiogenesis. The most challenging aspects of EOs, which limit their clinical uses, are their highly lipophilic nature, physicochemical instability, photosensitivity, high volatility and composition variability. The processing of EO-based products in the pharmaceutical field may be an interesting alternative to circumvent EOs' limitations, resulting in several benefits in their further clinical use. Identifying their bioactive compounds, therapeutic effects and chemical structures could open new perspectives for innovative developments in the field. Moreover, this could be helpful in obtaining versatile chemical synthesis routes and/or biotechnological drug production strategies, providing an accurate, safe and sustainable source of these bioactive compounds, while looking at their use as gold-standard therapy in the close future. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Natural Products for Anticancer Application)
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