Guilherme Vinício de Sousa Silva, Ana Luiza Vieira Ferreira Guimarães Lopes, Isis Carolina Viali, Lucas Zannini Medeiros Lima, Matheus Ribeiro Bizuti, Fabiana Brum Haag, Débora Tavares de Resende E Silva
Journal: Chinese journal of integrative medicine 2023;29(3):268-279
PMID: 35809179
Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Although there are many different causes for its development, things that can damage the cells such as ultraviolet light and free radicals can be contributors. Protection against cellular damage may be of benefit to the prevention of cancer development and flavonoids, which are natural chemicals found in plants such as fruits and vegetables, have protective properties. This systematic review paper aimed to determine the therapeutic properties of flavonoids in the treatment of cancer. The results showed that all ten studies included in the review were observational studies carried out on human and animal cells. Ten different flavonoids were identified as having a potential role in cancer treatment mainly through promoting cancer cell death; Isolated mimulone-C geranyl flavonoids, baicalein, isoliquiritigenin, wogonin, icariin, fistein, pectolinarigenin, silibinin, sotetsu flavone, and oroxylin A. It was concluded that flavonoids may have a potential therapeutic effect in gall bladder cancer, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, and oral cancer through it acting on cancer cell death. This study could be used by healthcare professionals to understand that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables may be of benefit to individuals with cancer. However, the results of this study should be interpreted with caution as it was based on animal and human cells and many processes can affect the development of cancer in whole human body systems.
Cancers have high morbidity and mortality rates worldwide. Current anticancer therapies have demonstrated specific signaling pathways as a target in the involvement of carcinogenesis. Autophagy is a quality control system for proteins and plays a fundamental role in cancer carcinogenesis, exerting an anticarcinogenic role in normal cells and can inhibit the transformation of malignant cells. Therefore, drugs aimed at autophagy can function as antitumor agents. Flavonoids are a class of polyphenolic secondary metabolites commonly found in plants and, consequently, consumed in diets. In this review, the systematic search strategy was used, which included the search for descriptors "flavonoids" AND "mTOR pathway" AND "cancer" AND "autophagy", in the electronic databases of PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science and Scopus, from January 2011 to January 2021. The current literature demonstrates that flavonoids have anticarcinogenic properties, including inhibition of cell proliferation, induction of apoptosis, autophagy, necrosis, cell cycle arrest, senescence, impaired cell migration, invasion, tumor angiogenesis and reduced resistance to multiple drugs in tumor cells. We demonstrate the available evidence on the roles of flavonoids and autophagy in cancer progression and inhibition. (Registration No. CRD42021243071 at PROSPERO).
© 2022. The Chinese Journal of Integrated Traditional and Western Medicine Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
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