For the last couple of decades, natural products, either applied singly or in conjunction with other cancer therapies including chemotherapy and radiotherapy, have allowed us to combat different types of human cancers through the inhibition of their initiation and progression. The principal sources of these useful compounds are isolated from plants that were described in traditional medicines for their curative potential. Leelamine, derived from the bark of pine trees, was previously reported as having a weak agonistic effect on cannabinoid receptors and limited inhibitory effects on pyruvate dehydrogenase kinases (PDKs). It has been reported to possess a strong lysosomotropic property; this feature enables its assembly inside the acidic compartments within a cell, such as lysosomes, which may eventually hinder endocytosis. In this review, we briefly highlight the varied antineoplastic actions of leelamine that have found implications in pharmacological research, and the numerous intracellular targets affected by this agent that can effectively negate the oncogenic process.
Keywords: leelamine; malignancies; molecular mechanisms, preclinical models.