REVIEW article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Pharmacology of Anti-Cancer Drugs
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1641838
This article is part of the Research TopicPhytochemical Interventions to CancerView all 6 articles
Natural Products as Therapeutics for Malignant Melanoma: Preclinical evidence and Mechanism
Provisionally accepted
- 1Other, Medicine, China
- 2Chengdu First People's Hospital, Chengdu, China
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Melanoma is one of the most common malignancies among fair-skinned populations.Natural products, a diverse group of bioactive compounds derived from plants and animals, have demonstrated inhibitory effects on melanoma growth, invasion, and metastasis. This review summarizes the mechanisms through which natural products inhibit melanoma progression and metastasis. These compounds are categorized based on their mechanisms of action. Many natural products have been found to induce apoptosis in melanoma cells through various signaling pathways. For instance, rhodopsin and the triazolylpeptidyl penicillin derivative TAP7f suppress the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, thereby reducing melanoma cell proliferation and migration. Resveratrol and vitamin E delta-tocotrienol (δ-TT) inhibit caspase-dependent mitochondrial and endoplasmic reticulum stress pathways, inducing apoptosis in melanoma cells. Shikonin and plumbagin exert their antitumor effects through the mitogen-activated protein kinase / extracellular signal-regulated kinase (MAPK/ERK) signaling pathway. In addition, natural products such as silymarin, capsaicin, and ursolic acid exhibit multi-targeted anticancer effects with high efficiency and low toxicity by modulating various signaling pathways. These findings highlight the ability of natural compounds to regulate multiple biological targets, offering new directions and potential clinical applications in melanoma therapy. Natural product-based drug development holds great promise for overcoming current limitations in cancer treatment.
Keywords: TanIIA, tanshinone IIa, ER, endoplasmic reticulum, UA, ursolic acid, CoQ0, coenzyme Q0, UPR, Melanoma, natural products, signaling pathway, apoptosis
Received: 05 Jun 2025; Accepted: 05 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gao, Huang, Zhang, Li, Long and Qin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Shengzhi Long, Chengdu First People's Hospital, Chengdu, China
Yuesi Qin, Other, Medicine, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.