Can Some Marine-Derived Fungal Metabolites Become Actual Anticancer Agents?

Abstract

Marine fungi are known to produce structurally unique secondary metabolites, and more than 1000 marine fungal-derived metabolites have already been reported. Despite the absence of marine fungal-derived metabolites in the current clinical pipeline, dozens of them have been classified as potential chemotherapy candidates because of their anticancer activity. Over the last decade, several comprehensive reviews have covered the potential anticancer activity of marine fungal-derived metabolites. However, these reviews consider the term “cytotoxicity” to be synonymous with “anticancer agent”, which is not actually true. Indeed, a cytotoxic compound is by definition a poisonous compound. To become a potential anticancer agent, a cytotoxic compound must at least display (i) selectivity between normal and cancer cells (ii) activity against multidrug-resistant (MDR) cancer cells; and (iii) a preferentially non-apoptotic cell death mechanism, as it is now well known that a high proportion of cancer cells that resist chemotherapy are in fact apoptosis-resistant cancer cells against which pro-apoptotic drugs have more than limited efficacy. The present review thus focuses on the cytotoxic marine fungal-derived metabolites whose ability to kill cancer cells has been reported in the literature. Particular attention is paid to the compounds that kill cancer cells through non-apoptotic cell death mechanisms.

Marine Natural Products as Models to Circumvent Multidrug Resistance

“…Recently, there has been a proposal of a new generation of ABC inhibitors which focuses on natural products and natural product mimics [28][29][30], peptidomimetics [31], surfactants and lipids [32], and dual ligands [20]. While the traditional sources of terrestrial plants and microbes will undoubtedly continue to yield valuable new bioactive agents, it is even more important to explore all available pools of molecular diversity.…”

Two New Pyripyropenes from the Marine Fungus Fusarium lateritium 2016F18‐1

“…Marine fungi continue to attract much attention as a rich source of new bioactive compounds, many of which have been used as valuable research reagents and lead compounds for drug development . There are abundant marine macroorganisms, such as sponges and soft corals in the South China Sea.…”

“…Marine fungi continue to attract much attention as a rich source of new bioactive compounds, many of which have been used as valuable research reagents and lead compounds for drug development. [1] There are abundant marine macroorganisms, such as sponges and soft corals in the South China Sea. In recent years, our investigation on the metabolites of marine fungi associated with marine invertebrates led to the discovery of a series of novel bioactive metabolites.…”

In vitro Anticancer Activity of Marine Fungus Penicillium cyaneum

“…The biggest challenges in the field of cancer biology are to discover an anticancer drug which has the ability to kill the cancer cells without any side effects to the surrounding cells. The recent and systematic chemical characterization of fungi from the marine environment has provided a total number that currently exceeds 1000 new natural products (Rateb and Ebel, 2011;Gomes et al, 2015). The marine fungus is having the ability to produce chemically unique bioactive molecules, which is supported by the identification of new anticancer metabolites through the application of classical screening and isolation techniques.…”