About this Research Topic

Background

Cancer is a complex disease that affects millions of people worldwide. Despite significant advances in cancer treatment, the search for effective and safe therapies continues. Natural products have been used for centuries to treat various diseases, including cancer. These products are derived from plants, animals, or microorganisms and contain bioactive compounds with potential anticancer properties.

Nanoparticles (NPs) are also emerging as promising tools in cancer therapy due to their unique physicochemical properties that allow them to target tumors specifically while minimizing damage to healthy tissues. NPs can be loaded with natural product-derived compounds such as curcumin or resveratrol, which have shown potent anticancer activity but poor solubility and bioavailability when administered alone.

Combining natural products with nanoparticles may enhance their therapeutic efficacy by improving drug delivery, increasing stability, and reducing toxicity. However, there are still challenges associated with this approach, such as optimizing NP size and surface chemistry for optimal tumor targeting while avoiding immune system recognition. Despite these challenges, recent studies suggest that combining natural products with nanoparticles holds great promise in the fight against cancer. In vitro, studies have demonstrated enhanced cytotoxicity of nanoparticle-loaded natural product derivatives compared to free drugs alone against various types of cancer, including breast carcinoma cell lines MCF-7/MDA-MB-231 and prostate adenocarcinoma cell lines PC3, among others. Therefore, natural product-nanoparticle combinations represent an exciting area of research in oncology, offering new hope for developing more effective treatments for patients suffering from different forms of cancer.

This Research Topic aims to disseminate the results of modern anticancer research in the hopes of finding a cure using the synergistic impacts of natural products and NPs. In sum, the experimental evidence and compiled scientific data in this collection will highlight the therapeutic potential of natural products in the battle against cancer cells.

All the manuscripts submitted to the collection will need to fully comply with the Four Pillars of Best Practice in Ethnopharmacology (you can freely download the full version here). We also expect that the MS follow the standards established in the ConPhyMP statement Front. Pharmacol. 13:953205.

Keywords: multidrug resistance, anticancer, natural products, nanoparticles, herbal medicines, synergistic effects

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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