Targeted
therapies have changed the treatment of
cancer, giving new hope to many patients in recent years. The shortcomings of targeted
therapies including acquired resistance, limited susceptible patients, high cost, and high toxicities, have led to the necessity of combining these
therapies with other targeted or chemotherapeutic treatments. Natural products are uniquely capable of synergizing with targeted and non-targeted anticancer regimens due to their ability to affect multiple cellular pathways simultaneously. Compounds which provide an additive effect to the often combined immune
therapies and cytotoxic
chemotherapies, are exceedingly rare. These compounds would however provide a strengthening bridge between the two treatment modalities, increasing their effectiveness and improving patient prognoses. In this study,
7-epi-clusianone was investigated for its anticancer properties. While previous studies have suggested
clusianone and its conformational isomers, including
7-epi-clusianone, are chemotherapeutic, few
cancer types have been demonstrated to exhibit sensitivity to these compounds and little is known about the mechanism. In this study,
7-epi-clusianone was shown to inhibit the growth of 60
cancer cell types and induce significant cell death in 25
cancer cell lines, while simultaneously modulating the immune system, inhibiting angiogenesis, and inhibiting
cancer cell invasion, making it a promising lead compound for
cancer drug discovery.