Bioactive substances with anti-neoplastic efficacy from marine invertebrates:PoriferaandCoelenterata

Abstract

An ever increasing demand for new lead compounds in the pharmaceutical industry has led scientists to search for natural bioactive products. Based on this extensive research, marine invertebrates now represent a rich source of novel substances with significant antineoplastic activities. As the current approach of synthesizing new and chemically modifying old drugs seems to have slowed down, and the identification of new anticancer drugs is not too promising, a new approach is clearly needed. The objective of this review is to present up-to-date data on these newer compounds. Based on the data summarized in this short review, it is clear that marine invertebrates represent an extremely important source of compounds with potential anti-cancer effects. Considering that we tested only a tiny number of Porifera and Coelenterata , the best is yet to come.

Finding chemo: the search for marine-based pharmaceutical drugs active against cancer

“…[31] Because our planet is covered by more than 80% of water, this makes the diversity of marine organisms range over 1000 different species per square meter. [32] These organisms have learnt to live under fairly harsh environments, enabling their biological evolution to acquire the ability to produce potent chemicals, some of these may even be cytotoxic towards cancerous cells. [33] This makes the sea a rich source of potential novel drugs that have the ability to treat cancer and other diseases related with the cardiovascular, immune and nervous systems.…”

“…[33,34] The types of marine compounds vary between alkaloids, steroids, terpenes, peptides, macrolids and polyketides, and these are isolated from a range of organisms -marine vertebrates, sponges, corals, mollusks, chordates and bacteria. [32,35] Of these, marine sponges are one of the richest sources of bioactive compounds, and many drugs from marine sponges have shown that they target cellular proliferation through the inhibition of microtubule formation. Many of these compounds have unique structures that proffer them with anticancer activity via blocking enzymatic activities, promoting growth arrest or stimulating death pathways -apoptosis, autophagy or necrosis.…”

“…[36] Other benefits of chemical synthesis include acquiring samples without affecting the species or disturbing its environment, and the difficulty of identifying origin of the molecule because of marine animals living in symbiosis in nature. [32] Despite the issues behind their acquisition, marine samples have shown favourable outcomes where approximately 60% of anticancer drugs in the market are of natural sources and one-third of the bestselling drugs are either from natural products or their derivatives. [31] Marine-derived compounds have been developed into clinically approved drugs, and these include such products as Yondelis, Halaven and Cytosar-U as well as drugs in current clinical trials listed in Table 1.…”

Antifungal and anticancer effects of a polysaccharide-protein complex from the gut bacteriumRaoultella ornithinolyticaisolated from the earthwormDendrobaena veneta

“…Invertebrates represent an extremely important source of compounds with potential anticancer effects (Chernysh et al, 2002;Ireland et al, 2003;Zhang et al, 2005;Sima & Vetvicka, 2011). Earthworms, ancient invertebrate animals, have developed a highly efficient immune defense system to combat infections, ensuring long-term survival.…”

Cytotoxic effects of Fisturalin-3 and 11-Deoxyfisturalin-3 on Jurkat and U937 cell lines

“…For this reason, and consequently they are a natural source of interesting metabolites which are potential drugs for therapy [1][2][3][4][5][6] . Some are being tested in clinical trials with relevant success; however, researchers are still encountering new compounds from marine species that could become leader compounds in future therapy [3][4][5][6] . Sponges of the Aplysinidae family are a rich source of microorganisms.…”