Application prospects of plant and fungal compounds in antitumor therapy

Introduction. Anticancer inhibitors of plant and fungal origin (IPFOs) represent a promising direction in antitumor therapy, offering a variety of mechanisms of action, in most cases different from conventional chemotherapeutic drugs. As a rule, IPFOs simultaneously affect several metabolic pathways, exerting a combined effect on different targets in the cancer cell and reducing the risk of drug resistance development. Objective. To study promising directions in the development of new antitumor drugs, to generalize current data on the IPFO mechanism of action in the context of a combined approach to cancer treatment. Discussion. Compounds exhibiting antitumor activity are increasingly attracting the research attention. Due to their diverse mechanisms of action, anticancer IPFOs represent a promising direction in cancer treatment. A large number of conventional chemotherapy drugs, although being of plant origin, demonstrate high effectiveness, which confirms the relevance of searching for new anticancer IPFO compounds. Solid tumors exhibit a pronounced ability to both proliferate and induce angiogenesis, which justifies the current active search for new plant-derived compounds with antiangiogenic properties, along with other IPFOs. As a rule, anticancer IPFOs simultaneously affect several metabolic pathways, exerting a combined effect on different targets in the cancer cell and reducing the risk of drug resistance. Conclusions. This review has examined the molecular mechanisms of IPFO action, including suppression of angiogenesis and cancer cells proliferation, apoptosis induction, cell cycle modulation, and direct cytotoxic effect by stimulating the activity of CD8 + T lymphocytes, NK cells, and macrophages.