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Phyto-polyphenols as potential inhibitors of breast cancer metastasis

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Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women as metastasis is currently the main cause of mortality. Breast cancer cells undergoing metastasis acquire resistance to death signals and increase of cellular motility and invasiveness. Plants are rich in polyphenolic compounds, many of them with known medicinal effects. Various phyto-polyphenols have also been demonstrated to suppress cancer growth. Their mechanism of action is usually pleiotropic as they target multiple signaling pathways regulating key cellular processes such as proliferation, apoptosis and differentiation. Importantly, some phyto- polyphenols show low level of toxicity to untransformed cells, but selective suppressing effects on cancer cells proliferation and differentiation. In this review, we summarize the current information about the mechanism of action of some phyto-polyphenols that have demonstrated anti-carcinogenic activities in vitro and in vivo. Gained knowledge of how these natural polyphenolic compounds work can give us a clue for the development of novel anti-metastatic agents.
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... Studies conducted mainly in vitro have shown that polyphenols have chemopreventive and chemotherapeutic effects on breast cancer cells by influencing numerous molecular pathways. [35][36][37][38][39] They inhibit, among others, DNA-methyltransferase (DNMT) and histone deacetylase (HDAC), which -through increased acetylation and demethylation of suppressor genes -contributes to the prevention of proliferation and migration of breast cancer cells. [35,36,37] Polyphenols also inhibit STAT3 -signal inducer and activator of transcription -thereby inhibiting the expression of genes involved in cell proliferation, as well as in the processes of angiogenesis and metastasis. ...
... [35,36,37] Polyphenols also inhibit STAT3 -signal inducer and activator of transcription -thereby inhibiting the expression of genes involved in cell proliferation, as well as in the processes of angiogenesis and metastasis. [35,36,38,39] In recent years, attention has also been paid to the importance of overexpression of PD-L1 -programmed death ligand 1 -in various stages of carcinogenesis, metastasis and treatment resistance. In relation to breast cancer, polyphenols reduce PD-L1 expression. ...
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... Around 50% of such medications were derived from naturally compounds and their offshoots that are significantly less harmful but more useful on a biological level [10][11][12]. In fact, scientists have demonstrated that bioactive compounds, such as polyphenols, terpenes, vitamins, and oils, among many others, exhibit antimutagenic and anticancer properties [13,14]. This is because of the structural complexity that bioactive compounds like curcumin exhibit anti-inflammatory effects that make it a good choice for healing serious diseases [15]. ...
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... Early work associated with the anticancer activity of polyphenols was their effect on the protein tyrosine kinase, which is required for signaling pathways in the cell cycle, survival, and motility (Kanadaswami et al., 2005). This effect of polyphenols on protein tyrosinase kinase, was later confirmed by (Avtanski and Poretsky, 2018) because of its key role in the signaling pathways involved in the cell cycling, survival, and motility. They showed polyphenols affected the functioning of protein kinase C (PKC) and prevented tumor initiation and progression to inflammation. ...
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