Phytochemicals, micrornas, and cancer: Implications for cancer prevention and therapy

Abstract

Phytochemicals are bioactive plant compounds that have drawn significant attention as preventive and therapeutic agents against cancer. With emerging evidence, it is now becoming clear that phytochemicals confer anticancer activities by regulating the expression of microRNAs (miRNAs/miRs), which are functionally involved in cancer pathobiology. miRNAs represent a novel class of gene regulators, whose altered expression by phytochemicals leads to modulation of pathologically relevant target genes, and thus affects tumor cell growth and malignant properties. miRNAs also associate with and localize to mitochondria, suggesting that mitochondrial resident miRNAs may play a role in regulation of cell death in response to phytochemicals. In this chapter we provide a brief overview of various phytochemicals and cancer-associated miRNAs and discuss some of the available literature on miRNA regulation by phytochemicals as a mechanism(s) for their anticancer activities. We further discuss the role of miRNAs in cancer pathogenesis and their targeting by plant-derived natural compounds.