https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5002-5327
Abstract
As a double-edged sword, autophagy in cancer cells could either suppress or promote tumorigenesis. Nowadays, more and more natural compounds with autophagy-regulating activities exhibit therapeutic effects against various cancers. N-Heterocycle derivatives plays an important role for discovery new drugs. In this review, we summarize and classify 116 N-heterocycle derivatives with autophagy-regulating activities in the past decade into 12 classes according to structure characteristics. The structural features, bioactivities, mechanism and problems faced in this field are discussed and reported for the first time. Some of these even exhibited outstanding in vivo antitumor activities, including bisaminoquinoline (3), pancratistatin (8), 10-hydroxyevodiamine (18), lycorine (28), piperine (31) and iridium (III) complex (57), which are potential drug candidates for antitumor therapy.
Author contributions
As first author and corresponding author, XX Liang organized and wrote the whole manuscript. Co-first author, L Zhang gave the idea and careful revision of the manuscript. FL Li and SX Luan drew the related figures and gave suggestions to improve the manuscript. CL He, LZ Yin, ZQ Yin, YF Zou and GZ Yue edited and corrected the final version of the manuscript. LX Li, X Song, C Lv, W Zhang and B Jing searched the related references.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
Financial support from NSFC (81703387, 31972743) and Drug Innovation Group of China Agricultural Research System (CARS-SVDIP) are greatly appreciated. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.