Fig. 2

Overview of activation/inhibition of receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK)/Phosphoinositide 3-kinases (PI3K)/Akt, JAK/STAT, and nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) pathways. These pathways involve tumor cell survival, proliferation, differentiation, metabolism, apoptosis, and protein synthesis. Due to their function, these receptors and downstream molecules have been targeted over decades to increase overall survival and tumor progression inhibition. The receptors are named as an example because each signaling pathway's initiating receptors contain a variety of receptors. The black boxes describe the anticancer small molecules with their respective targets. They act through inhibiting the activity of proteins/molecules which are involved in cancer development and progression. Vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR), G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR), epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), and tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR)