Recent Update of Natural Compounds as HIF-1α Inhibitors in Colorectal Carcinoma

Hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1 is a transcription factor that regulates the expression of target genes associated with oxygen homeostasis under hypoxic conditions, thereby contributing to tumor development and progression. Accumulating evidence has demonstrated that HIF-1 alpha mediates different biological processes, including tumor angiogenesis, metastasis, metabolism, and immune evasion. Thus, overexpression of HIF-1 alpha is strongly associated with poor prognosis in cancer patients. Natural compounds are important sources of anticancer drugs and studies have emphasized the decisive role of these mediators in modulating HIF-1 alpha. Therefore, the pharmacological targeting of HIF-1 alpha has emerged as a novel cancer therapeutic approach in recent years. The novelty of this review is that it summarizes natural products targeting HIF-1 alpha in colorectal cancer that have not been presented earlier. We studied research publications related to the HIF-1 alpha domain in cancer from 2010 to 2024. However, our main focus was to identify a better targeted approach for colorectal carcinoma management. Our review described HIF-1 alpha role in tumor progression, summarizes the natural compounds employed as HIF-1 alpha inhibitors, and discusses their potential in the development of natural compounds as HIF-1 alpha inhibitors for colorectal cancer treatment.