ABSTRACT
Polyoxometalates (POMs) are versatile clusters used in a large scale of fields, and have become of a great interest in biomedicinal studies, where many compounds have proved to have anticancer, antibacterial, and antiviral activities. This chapter explains recent advances of decavanadate and other POMs as potential candidates for anticancer, antibacterial, and antiviral effects with a particular interest in focus on their mechanisms of action. The increasing resistance effect of cancer cells and the high toxicity of chemotherapeutic agents, together with growing cancer incidence all around the world, beg for a new therapeutic drug. The mechanisms of action of POMs as antitumor agents are not yet fully understood. Combination between different antibiotics is commonly adopted to solve the antibiotherapy gap necessary to combat infections by multiresistant bacteria. The mechanism of action of POMs as antibacterial agents is not yet fully understood.
