Cancers will continue to be a threat to health unless they can be controlled by combinations of treatmentmodalities. In this review, evaluate the role of resveratrol (RSV) as a radiosensitizing agent was evaluated andunderlying mechanisms holistically explored in different cancer models focusing on therapeutic possibilities.The ability of RSV to modify the effect of radiation exposure in normal and cancer cells has indeed been shownquite convincingly, the combination of RSV and IR exhibiting synergistic effects on different cancer cells. Thisis relevant since controlled exposure to IR is one of the most frequently applied treatments in cancer patients.However, radiotherapy (XRT) treatment regimes are very often not effective in clinical practice as observedin patients with glioma, prostate cancer (PCa), melanoma, for example, largely due to tumour radioresistantproperties. Sensitization of IR-induced apoptosis by natural products such as RSV is likely to be relevant incancer control and treatment. However, all cancers do not respond to RSV+IR in a similar manner. Therefore,for those such as the radioresistant PCa or melanoma cells, the RSV+IR regime has to be very carefully chosenin order to achieve effective and desirable outcomes with minimum toxicity to normal cells. They are reportsthat the highest concentration of 100 mM RSV and highest dose of 5 Gy IR are sufficient to kill cells by inductionof apoptosis, indicating that RSV is effective in radiosensitizing otherwise radioresistant cells. In general, it hasbeen shown in different cancer cells that RSV+XRT effectively act by enhancing expression of anti-proliferativeand pro-apoptotic molecules, and inhibiting pro-proliferative and anti-apoptotic molecules, leading to inductionof apoptosis through various pathways, and cell death. If RSV+XRT can suppress the signature of cancerstemness, enhance the radiosensitivity by either targeting the mitochondrial functionality or modulating thetumour necrosis factor-mediated or Fas-FasL-mediated pathways of apoptosis in different cancers, particularlyin vivo, its therapeutic use in the control of cancers holds promise in the near future.
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