Protótipos alcaloides com potencial antineoplásico: uma revisão de literatura

Abstract

Alkaloids are natural secondary metabolites with historical and pharmacological relevance in oncology, as different representatives of this class have given rise to drugs used against hematological malignancies and solid tumors. This study aimed to analyze alkaloids with antineoplastic potential, considering established drugs, promising molecules, mechanisms of action, pharmacological limitations, and therapeutic perspectives. This is a qualitative, descriptive, and exploratory literature review, based on a survey of publications available in Google Scholar, MEDLINE via PubMed, SciELO, and ScienceDirect, from 2020 to 2026. The search used descriptors indexed in the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), including “Alkaloids,” “Antineoplastic Agents,” “Drug Screening Assays, Antitumor,” and “Therapeutics,” combined with the Boolean operators AND and OR. A total of 96 articles were identified, from which the most relevant were selected according to theme, text availability, language, recency, and methodological adequacy. The analyzed articles demonstrated that classic alkaloids — such as vinca derivatives, camptothecin analogues, and homoharringtonine/omacetaxine — act on essential targets involved in tumor proliferation. Furthermore, compounds such as berberine, piperine, sanguinarine, chelerythrine, Solanum glycoalkaloids, indole alkaloids, montanine, and belotecan showed antitumor activity by modulating pathways associated with apoptosis, autophagy, the cell cycle, angiogenesis, invasion, metastasis, and therapeutic resistance. It is concluded that alkaloids represent relevant structural prototypes for the rational development of antineoplastic agents; however, their broad clinical application requires further consolidation.