Figure 2.

Strategy for filling the knowledge gap related to the connection between natural products, their associated miRNAs, and radiation-modulating targets. Through a PubMed/Google Scholar search, literature surveys for (1) radioprotective natural products and (2) natural-product-regulated miRNAs were performed (Table 1). Notably, several natural products were individually reported to have radioprotective and miRNA-modulating effects; however, the impact of miRNAs on the radiation response during treatment with these natural products remains unclear. (3) The radiation impact (radioprotection for non-cancer tissues and/or radiosensitivity for cancer cells) of these miRNAs was assessed by a literature search. Finally, (4) these miRNAs were fed into miRDB [167] to retrieve the GO radiation-modulating genes summarized from the Gene Ontology function in MGD (GO:0071480 and GO:0071481) [168].