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Abstract
With the increasing incidence of cancer worldwide, the prevention and treatment of cancer have garnered considerable scientific attention. Traditional chemotherapeutic drugs are highly toxic and associated with substantial side effects; therefore, there is an urgent need for developing new therapeutic agents. Dietary phytochemicals are important in tumor prevention and treatment because of their low toxicity and side effects at low concentrations; however, their exact mechanisms of action remain obscure. DNA damage is mainly caused by physical or chemical factors in the environment, such as ultraviolet light, alkylating agents and reactive oxygen species that cause changes in the DNA structure of cells. Several phytochemicals have been shown inhibit the occurrence and development of tumors by inducing DNA damage. This article reviews the advances in phytochemical research; particularly regarding the mechanisms related to DNA damage and provide a theoretical basis for future chemoprophylaxis research.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Liwen Bianji (Edanz) (www.liwenbianji.cn) for editing the English text of a draft of this manuscript.
Author Contributions
Yang Ye: funding acquisition, investigation, conceptualization, writing-original draft. Ying Ma: conceptualization, project administration, writing-review & editing. Mei Kong: investigation and methodology. Zhihua Wang: investigation, supervision and methodology. Kang Sun: conceptualization, formal analysis. Fang Li: conceptualization, project administration, writing-review & editing.
Disclosure Statement
The authors report no conflict of interest.
Table 1. An overview of the main mechanism of phytochemicals on DNA damage in cancer cells.