Plant derived secondary metabolites as multiple signaling pathways inhibitors against cancer
Sabeena Arif, Akanksha Sharma, Mohammad Hayatul Islam
Abstract
Cancer is a major worldwide public health problem having complex and varied causative factors. The major obstacles for the success of precision cancer therapy are tumor heterogeneity and emergence of drug resistance. Both the challenges are being closely related leading to the therapeutic failures in clinical exercise. Targeted approach against cancer hit a single molecule expressed in neoplastic cells, thus frequently associated with development of resistance. Therefore, owing to the fact that in cancer cells, many signaling pathways operate in parallel; the idea of multitargeted therapy is suggested as a promising alternative. Natural compounds having vast chemical diversity and relatively safer with little or no side effects, thereby offer immense promise for the discovery and development of potent therapeutics against diverse human diseases including cancer. Modern drug discovery based on computational approaches has immense potential to identify novel therapeutics for multiple targets out of millions of compounds. Furthermore, these approaches allow the determination of the efficacy of each compound with its target before its mass production and biological testing. Thus, the present review describes the in-depth analysis of multitargeted phytochemicals as potent therapeutic molecules against cancer. Identification of su ch potential multipronged compound will strengthen drug discovery by medicinal chemists/researchers to promote understanding and collaboration with clinical scientists.