Common Methods Used for the Discovery of Natural Anticancer Compounds

Carcinogenesis is a long-term, multifactorial, and multistep process. Dietary phytochemicals can play a significant role in cancer prevention. In this chapter, we describe common protocols to study the role of phytochemicals in chemoprevention and divide the protocols into two types. In the first part of the chapter, the methods including cell proliferation, cell cycle, and cell apoptosis assays are related to the analysis of the effect of a compound on cellular phenotype. In the second part, the methods focus on the discovery of molecular targets and mechanisms for chemopreventive and therapeutic compounds, and include descriptions for an immunoassay for kinase inhibitor discovery, immunofluorescence, co-immunoprecipitation, and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP).