Gul-e-Saba Chaudhry
1* 
, Rehmat Jan
2, Abdah Akim
3, Muhammad Naveed Zafar
4, Yeong Yik Sung
1, Tengku Sifzizul Tengku Muhammad
11 Institute of Marine Biotechnology, University Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia.
2 Department of Environmental Sciences, Fatima Jinnah University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
3 Department of Biomedical Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Seri Kembangan, Selangor, Malaysia.
4 Department of Chemistry, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, 45320, Pakistan.
*Corresponding Author: *Corresponding Author: Gul-e-Saba Chaudhry, Tel: +609-6683810, Fax: +609-6683810, Email: , Email:
gul.saba@umt.edu.my
Abstract
Cancer is a complex multifactorial process, unchecked and abrupt division, and cell growth—conventional chemotherapy, along with radiotherapy, is used to treat breast cancer. Due to reduce efficacy and less survival rate, there is a particular need for the discovery of new active anticancer agents. Natural resources such as terrestrial/marine plants or organisms are a promising source for the generation of new therapeutics with improving efficacy. The screening of natural plant extracts and fractions, isolations of phytochemicals, and mechanistic study of those potential compounds play a remarkable role in the development of new therapeutic drugs with increased efficacy. Cancer is a multistage disease with complex signaling cascades. The initial study of screening whole extracts or fractions and later the isolation of secondary compounds and their mechanism of action study gives a clue of potential therapeutic agents for future drug development. The phytochemicals present in extracts/fractions produce remarkable effects due to synergistically targeting multiple signals. In this review, the molecular targets of extracts/ fractions and isolated compounds highlighted. The therapeutic agent's mechanistic targets in drug development focused involves; i) Induction of Apoptosis, ii) modulating cell cycle arrest, iii) Inhibition or suppression of invasion and metastasis and iv) various other pro-survival signaling pathways. The phytochemicals and their modified analogs identified as future potential candidates for anticancer chemotherapy.