Abstract
Lichens produce different classes of phenolic compounds, including anthraquinones, xanthones, dibenzofuranes, depsides and depsidones. Many of them have revealed effective biological activities such as antioxidant, antiviral, antibiotics, antifungal, and anticancer. Although no clinical study has been conducted yet, there are number of in vitro and in vivo studies demonstrating anticancer effects of lichen metabolites. The main goal of our work was to review most recent published papers dealing with anticancer activities of secondary metabolites of lichens and point out to their perspective clinical use in cancer management.
Highlights
Despite noticeable progress in the anticancer therapy, cancer disease remains one of the major health problems worldwide [1,2]
The aim of this paper is to provide up-to-date knowledge about anticancer effects of lichen extracts or their secondary metabolites on different signal pathways involved in cancer and/or carcinogenesis
Anti-invasive and anti-migrative potential of lichens is related to the modulation of various signaling molecules such as members of Ras superfamily of small GTPases (RhoA, Rac1, Cdc42, and KITENIN) which play a significant role in tumor development and progression
Summary
Despite noticeable progress in the anticancer therapy, cancer disease remains one of the major health problems worldwide [1,2]. Secondary metabolites present in lichens include aliphatic, cycloaliphatic, aromatic, and terpenic compounds, which demonstrate significant biological and pharmacological effects including those of anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antibacterial, analgesic, antipyretic, anti-proliferative, and cytotoxic [17]. These compounds have demonstrated antineoplastic activities in preclinical research in which revealed significant effects against cancer cells [18,19,20,21,22]. We have used the most recent scientific papers from the years 2015–2019
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