Somayyeh Ghareghomi
1 
, Vahideh Atabaki
2 , Naseh Abdollahzadeh
3, Shahin Ahmadian
1* , Salar Hafez Ghoran
4,5* 1 Department of Biochemistry, Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics (IBB), University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
2 Department of Pharmacognosy and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, Iran.
3 Neurophysiology Research Center, Cellular and Molecular Medicine Institute, Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Urmia, Iran.
4 Phytochemistry Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
5 Medicinal Plants Research Center, Yasuj University of Medical Sciences, Yasuj, Iran.
Abstract
One of the central signaling pathways with a regulatory effect on cell proliferation and survival is Akt/mTOR. In many human cancer types, for instance, lung cancer, the overexpression of Akt/mTOR has been reported. For this reason, either targeting cancer cells by synthetic or natural products affecting the Akt/mTOR pathway down-regulation is a useful strategy in cancer therapy. Direct inhibition of the signaling pathway or modulation of each related molecule could have significant feedback on the growth and proliferation of cancer cells. A variety of secondary metabolites has been identified to directly inhibit the AKT/mTOR signaling, which is important in the field of drug discovery. Naturally occurring nitrogenous and phenolic compounds can emerge as two pivotal classes of natural products possessing anticancer abilities. Herein, we have summarized the alkaloids and flavonoids for lung cancer treatment together with all the possible mechanisms of action relying on the Akt/mTOR pathway down-regulation. This review suggested that in search of new drugs, phytochemicals could be considered as promising scaffolds to be developed into efficient drugs for the treatment of cancer. In this review, the terms “Akt/mTOR”, “Alkaloid”, “flavonoid”, and “lung cancer” were searched without any limitation in search criteria in Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, and Google scholar engines.