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The diversity of highly bioactive and pharmacologically active natural products which recognize essential biological targets having exquisite specificity, constitutes a massive pharmacological database for discovery of valuable drugs. The rapid accumulation of information has revealed chemopreventive role of nobiletin against wide variety of cancers. Recent efforts are now being expanded and new integrative omics technologies have illuminated continuously upgrading list of molecular mechanisms which underlie carcinogenesis and metastasis. In this mini-review, we explore the progress that has been made in the identification of promising molecular targets of nobiletin.

Natural products have historically been invaluable as a premium source of therapeutic agents. Recent advancements in genomics and structural biology have portrayed a high-resolution landscape of the diversity of proteins targeted by pharmacologically active products from natural sources. Natural product research has generated valuable wealth of information and cutting-edge research-works have leveraged our conceptual knowledge altogether to a new level. Wogonin (5,7-dihydroxy-8-methoxyflavone) is an O-methylated flavone and has attracted noteworthy appreciation because of its ability to pharmacologically target plethora of cell signaling pathways in different cancers. In this mini-review, we have gathered scattered pieces of available scientific evidence to summarize how wogonin pharmaceutically targeted Wnt/β-catenin, JAK/STAT, VEGF/VEGFR and TRAIL-driven apoptotic pathways in wide variety of cancers. We have also critically analyzed how wogonin prevented carcinogenesis and metastasis in tumor-bearing mice. Although researchers have uncovered pleiotropic role of wogonin in the regulation of different oncogenic signaling cascades but there are visible knowledge gaps in our understanding related to regulation of non-coding RNAs by wogonin. Future studies must converge on the unraveling of additional drug targets for wogonin to achieve a fuller and realistic understanding of the chemopreventive properties of wogonin.

Maslinic acid (2α,3β-dihydroxyolean-12-en-28-oic acid) is a naturally occurring pentacyclic triterpenic compound. Maslinic acid is gradually gaining attention as an excellent pharmacologically active product because of its premium biological properties. In this review we will focus on chemopreventive properties of Maslinic acid against different cancers. Seemingly, available data is limited and we have yet to unravel how Maslinic acid therapeutically targeted oncogenic cell signal transduction cascades in different cancers. Moreover, there are visible knowledge gaps about the ability of Maslinic acid to modulate oncogenic and tumor suppressor microRNAs in various cancers.

Past several years have witnessed dramatic leaps in our understanding of rewiring of gene expression at the translation level during cancer developmentthat provides linchpin support to the transformed phenotype. Most recent and ground-breaking developments in the field of molecular oncology aredriven by an explosion in technological advancements and have started to reveal previously unimagined regulatory mechanisms and how they intricately co-ordinate to modulate cancer progression, loss of apoptosis and development of resistance against different therapeutics. However, the insights gained from work in this natural product research have far-reaching impact because of rapidly increasing repertoire of medicinally and biologically efficient phytochemicals. How Tanshinones mediate targeting of JAK-STAT, ER stress associated signaling cascade,PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway,autophagy, TRAIL pathway and microRNAs are being discovered and will prove to be helpful in getting a step closer to personalized medicine.

Interdisciplinary research has revolutionized the field of medicine and we have witnessed exponential increase in the high-impact research in past few decades. However, the road to this burgeoning research field is obstacle-ridden because of intratumor heterogeneity, loss of apoptosis and dysregulation of spatio-temporally controlled signaling pathways. Ground-breaking findings obtained through genetic, genomic and proteomic studies have considerably improved our concepts related to the complexity of protein network and excitingly, discovery of miRNAs has added another layer of intricacy to quantitatively regulated gene networks. In this review, we chronicle the milestone achievements and discuss how Pterostilbenes effectively regulated different cellular pathways. We have provided detailed mechanistic insights related to regulation of JAK-STAT signaling, Notch pathway, Wnt mediated intracellular signaling by pterostilbene. Underlying mechanisms about regulation of PI3K/AKT and MAPK pathways by pterostilbene in different cancers. Regulation of Metastasis-associated protein 1 (MTA1) proteins and Human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) in cancer cells by pterostilbene. Pterostilbene has also been reported to modulate the expression of various oncogenic and tumor suppressor microRNAs in cancer cells. Better and sharper comprehension of the concepts associated with the modes of action of pterostilbene in different cancers will be useful in identification of cancers which can be efficiently targeted by pterostilbene.