Promising Antineoplastic Actions of Melatonin

Overview

Journal Front Pharmacol

Date 2018 Nov 3

PMID 30386235

Citations 33

Authors

Gaia Favero

Enrico Moretti

Francesca Bonomini

Russel J Reiter

Luigi Fabrizio Rodella

Rita Rezzani

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Melatonin is an endogenous indoleamine with an incredible variety of properties and activities. In recent years, an increasing number of studies have investigated this indoleamine's interaction with cancerous cells. In particular, it seems that melatonin not only has the ability to improve the efficacy of many drugs used in chemotherapy but also has a direct inhibitory action on neoplastic cells. Many publications underlined the ability of melatonin to suppress the proliferation of various cancer cells or to modulate the expression of membrane receptors on these cells, thereby reducing tumor aggressiveness to metastasize. In addition, while melatonin has antiapoptotic actions in normal cells, in many cancer cells it has proapoptotic effects; these dichotomous actions have gained the interest of researchers. The increasing focus on melatonin in the field of oncology and the growing number of studies on this topic require a deep understanding of what we already know about the antineoplastic actions of melatonin. This information would be of value for potential use of melatonin against neoplastic diseases.

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