Accumulating evidence shows that elevated levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) are associated with cancer initiation, growth, and response to therapies. As concentrations increase, ROS influence cancer development in a paradoxical way, either triggering tumorigenesis and supporting the proliferation of cancer cells at moderate levels of ROS or causing cancer cell death at high levels of ROS. Thus, ROS can be considered an attractive target for therapy of cancer and two apparently contradictory but virtually complementary therapeutic strategies for the regulation of ROS to treat cancer. Despite tremendous resources being invested in prevention and treatment for cancer, cancer remains a leading cause of human deaths and brings a heavy burden to humans worldwide. Chemotherapy remains the key treatment for cancer therapy, but it produces harmful side effects. Meanwhile, the process of de novo development of new anticancer drugs generally needs increasing cost, long development cycle, and high risk of failure. The use of ROS-based repurposed drugs may be one of the promising ways to overcome current cancer treatment challenges. In this review, we briefly introduce the source and regulation of ROS and then focus on the status of repurposed drugs based on ROS regulation for cancer therapy and propose the challenges and direction of ROS-mediated cancer treatment.

中文翻译：

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用改变用途的药物作为抗癌疗法靶向肿瘤细胞的活性氧物种能力

越来越多的证据表明，活性氧 (ROS) 水平升高与癌症的发生、生长和对治疗的反应有关。随着浓度的增加，ROS 以一种矛盾的方式影响癌症的发展，要么在中等水平的 ROS 下引发肿瘤发生并支持癌细胞的增殖，要么在高水平的 ROS 下导致癌细胞死亡。因此，ROS 可以被认为是治疗癌症的有吸引力的靶标，并且是两种明显矛盾但实际上互补的治疗策略，用于调节 ROS 治疗癌症。尽管在癌症的预防和治疗方面投入了大量资源，但癌症仍然是人类死亡的主要原因，给全世界的人类带来了沉重的负担。化疗仍然是癌症治疗的关键，但它会产生有害的副作用。同时，从头开发新的抗癌药物的过程一般需要增加成本、较长的开发周期和较高的失败风险。使用基于 ROS 的再利用药物可能是克服当前癌症治疗挑战的有希望的方法之一。在这篇综述中，我们简要介绍了 ROS 的来源和调控，然后重点关注基于 ROS 调控的癌症治疗再利用药物的现状，并提出 ROS 介导的癌症治疗的挑战和方向。