Manuele Figueiredo da Silva, Arestides Alves Lins, Midiane Correia Gomes, Washley Phyama de Jesus Marinho, Rodrigo Santos Aquino de Araújo, Ricardo Olimpio de Moura, Peng Zhan, Igor José dos Santos Nascimento and Edeildo Ferreira da Silva-Júnior* Pages 1 - 29 ( 29 )
The term cancer is used to describe a complex pathology characterized by the uncontrollable proliferation of cells, which displays a fast metastatic spread, being a disease with difficult treatment. In this context, Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) represents a promising pathway to be inhibited, aiming to develop anticancer agents, since it performs a pivotal role in regulating essential cellular processes, including cell proliferation, growth, autophagy, and apoptosis. In parallel, natural compounds can effectively represent a therapeutic strategy to fight against malignant cells. Then, compounds derived from various plant sources, such as flavonoids, terpenoids, alkaloids, coumarins, and lignans, have exhibited remarkable in vitro and in vivo anticancer properties. This review focused in the exploration of natural products targeting the PI3K/AKT/m-TOR signaling pathway, demonstrating that these compounds could even further investigated to reveal novel and effective anticancer drugs in the future.
Cancer therapy, molecular targets, drug design, natural product, pharmacotherapy.