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Natural product modulators of transient receptor potential (TRP) channels as potential anti-cancer agents.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Repository DOI


Type

Article

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Authors

Rodrigues, Tiago 
Sieglitz, Florian 
Bernardes, Gonçalo JL 

Abstract

Treatment of cancer is a significant challenge in clinical medicine, and its research is a top priority in chemical biology and drug discovery. Consequently, there is an urgent need for identifying innovative chemotypes capable of modulating unexploited drug targets. The transient receptor potential (TRPs) channels persist scarcely explored as targets, despite intervening in a plethora of pathophysiological events in numerous diseases, including cancer. Both agonists and antagonists have proven capable of evoking phenotype changes leading to either cell death or reduced cell migration. Among these, natural products entail biologically pre-validated and privileged architectures for TRP recognition. Furthermore, several natural products have significantly contributed to our current knowledge on TRP biology. In this Tutorial Review we focus on selected natural products, e.g. capsaicinoids, cannabinoids and terpenes, by highlighting challenges and opportunities in their use as starting points for designing natural product-inspired TRP channel modulators. Importantly, the de-orphanization of natural products as TRP channel ligands may leverage their exploration as viable strategy for developing anticancer therapies. Finally, we foresee that TRP channels may be explored for the selective pharmacodelivery of cytotoxic payloads to diseased tissues, providing an innovative platform in chemical biology and molecular medicine.

Description

Keywords

Antineoplastic Agents, Biological Products, Cell Death, Humans, Neoplasms, Transient Receptor Potential Channels

Journal Title

Chemical Society Reviews

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0306-0012
1460-4744

Volume Title

45

Publisher

RSC
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/M003647/1)
European Commission (EC) (852985)
We thank FCT Portugal (FCT Investigator to G. J. L. B.), the EU (Marie-Curie CIG and Marie-Curie ITN Protein Conjugates to G. J. L. B.), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Postdoctoral Fellowship to F. S.), the EPSRC and MRC for funding. G. J. L. B. is a Royal Society University Research Fellow and the recipient of an European Research Council Starting Grant (TagIt).