*Editorial* **Redox Active Molecules in Cancer Treatments**

**Višnja Stepani´c 1,\* and Marta Kuˇcerová-Chlupáˇcová 2,\***


Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, with nearly 10 million deaths in 2020 [1]. Redox active molecules in the diet, dietary supplements, or in approved drug preparations are used to prevent and treat cancer.

The main objective of this Special Issue, "Redox Active Molecules in Cancer Treatments", in the journal *Molecules* is to present the results of in vitro, in vivo, and/or in silico studies on the biological effects and activities of anti- and pro-oxidant molecules observed in original research studies or collected and discussed in review articles. This goal is achieved by compiling seventeen articles. They present antioxidative or targeted oxidative effects of miscellaneous small-molecular-weight compounds or proteins against a variety of cancer types:


The studies explored diverse anticancer mechanisms of action of redox-active molecules in association with specific signaling pathways by using in vitro and in vivo methods. Some studies investigated the use of redox-active compounds to alleviate radiation-induced fibrosis, which is a side-effect of radiotherapy [16], or to detect oxygen in vitro and in vivo [13]. Most studies examined the effect of the tested compounds on cancer cell viability/proliferation assays [2–4,6,11,12] and/or analyses of reactive oxygen species concentrations [2,3,6,11,15,16]. Some other studies used in vitro assays such as cell cycle analyses [2–4,9], DNA fragmentation assays [3,9], analyses of the expression of apoptosis-related proteins and/or genes [9,11,12], etc. The two included studies are based on the application of state-of-the-art chemoinformatic analysis and modeling approaches—molecular docking and molecular dynamics [7,18].

The whole series of thirteen experimental investigations and one computational study is accompanied by three review articles focusing on aquaporins as redox regulators in breast cancer [17], natural compounds affecting ferroptosis [18], and modulation of NRF2 expression at the mRNA and protein levels [8].

We hope that readers will enjoy the book and glean interesting and useful information from the particular studies.

**Citation:** Stepani´c, V.;

Kuˇcerová-Chlupáˇcová, M. Redox Active Molecules in Cancer Treatments. *Molecules* **2023**, *28*, 1485. https://doi.org/10.3390/ molecules28031485

Received: 29 January 2023 Accepted: 31 January 2023 Published: 3 February 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Acknowledgments:** We would like to thank all of the authors who contributed to this Special Issue.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
