The arrival of predictive biomarkers for monitoring therapy response to natural compounds in cancer drug discovery

Abstract

Intrinsic or acquired drug resistance, adverse drug reactions and tumor heterogeneity between and within cancer patients limit the efficacy of clinical management of advanced cancers. To overcome these barriers, predictive biomarkers have recently emerged to guide medical oncologists in the selection of cancer patients who will respond to various anticancer treatments and to improve the toxicity to benefit ratio. Notably, targeted therapy has significantly benefited from these advances, but the application of predictive biomarkers have been a bit slower with some drugs derived from natural sources such as trabectedin, cabazitaxel and alvocidib. In this paper, we discuss some recent advances regarding the use of cancer biomarkers to predict efficacy of some selected natural compounds with a focus on human clinical studies.

Keywords: Anticancer natural compounds; Cancer drug discovery; Predictive biomarkers; Therapy response.