MINI REVIEW article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Ethnopharmacology
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances in Natural Product-Based Cancer Therapeutics: A Festschrift in Honour of Prof. Thomas EfferthView all articles
Harnessing Marine Algal Polysaccharides for Combination Cancer Therapy: Pharmacological Mechanisms and Clinical Perspectives
Provisionally accepted
- 1Macau University of Science and Technology Faculty of Medicine, Taipa, Macao, SAR China
- 2Dr. Neher's Biophysics Laboratory for Innovative Drug Discovery, State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau, China
- 3Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Food Quality and Safety, College of Food Science, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China
- 4Food Science and Technology Program, BNU-HKBU United International College, Zhuhai, China
- 5Institute for AI in Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau, China
- 6Zhuhai MUST Science and Technology Research Institute/Macau University of Science and Technology Innovation Technology Research Institute, Hengqin, China
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Algal polysaccharides (APs) have attracted increasing interest in recent years as adjunctive agents in cancer therapy due to their abundance, low toxicity, and diverse bioactivity. This review explores the pharmacological effects and mechanisms of APs in combination with chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and immunotherapy, as well as their potential as a nanomedicine delivery system. It highlights a wide range of biological activities exhibited by APs in combination therapy, including enhanced tumor cell killing, modulation of the tumor immune microenvironment, and protection of healthy tissues from treatment-related toxicity. Furthermore, the review summarizes the advancements in the pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics, and safety profiles of APs, emphasizing the need for standardized raw materials, combined strengths analysis, and clinical validation as key future directions.
Keywords: Algal polysaccharides, combination cancer therapy, anti-cancer, Pharmacological effects, therapeutic safety enhancement
Received: 08 Aug 2025; Accepted: 12 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jing, Chung, Huang, Xu and Wong. 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: Io Nam Wong, inwong@must.edu.mo
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