Marine Natural Products with High Anticancer Activities

Abstract

This review covers recent literature from 2012-2019 concerning 170 marine natural products and their semisynthetic analogues with strong anticancer biological activities. Reports that shed light on cellular and molecular mechanisms and biological functions of these compounds, thus advancing the understanding in cancer biology are also included. Biosynthetic studies and total syntheses, which have provided access to derivatives and have contributed to the proper structure or stereochemistry elucidation or revision are mentioned. The natural compounds isolated from marine organisms are divided into nine groups, namely: alkaloids, sterols and steroids, glycosides, terpenes and terpenoids, macrolides, polypeptides, quinones, phenols and polyphenols, and miscellaneous products. An emphasis is placed on several drugs originating from marine natural products that have already been marketed or are currently in clinical trials.

Bioactive Properties of Marine Phenolics

“…The side effects of antineoplastic drugs and chemotherapy motivate the search for natural products that could be used as new therapeutic agents with more efficacy, specificity and without adverse effects. Among the bioactive compounds present in marine sources, polyphenols have been demonstrated to have potent anticancerogenic activity, which has been recently reviewed [ 36 , 246 , 247 ]. An association of dietary seaweed intake (gim, miyeok and dashima) with single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs; rs6983267, rs7014346, and rs719725) and colorectal cancer risk in a Korean population has been established.…”

Design, synthesis, and evaluation of novel coumarin-dithiocarbamate derivatives (IDs) as anti-colorectal cancer agents

“…Over the past few decades, natural products play an important role in the discovery of anticancer drugs [12][13][14] . Coumarin (benzopyran-2-one, Figure 1) is a classic natural product original from plants, bacteria and fungi 15,16 .…”

Anticancer activities, structure–activity relationship, and mechanism of action of 12‐, 14‐, and 16‐membered macrolactones

“…Natural products with structural diversity are a major source of new chemical entities in the discovery of novel anticancer agents that potently suppress various molecular targets. [ 11,12 ] Among them, macrolactones constitute an important family of natural origin [ 13,14 ] and have a broad range of pharmacological properties, including antibacterial, [ 15,16 ] antifungal, [ 17,18 ] anti‐inflammatory, [ 19,20 ] antiviral, [ 21,22 ] and anticancer [ 23,24 ] activities. Mechanistic investigations revealed that macrolactones could exert antiproliferative activities via diverse mechanisms including the expression of interferon (IFN)‐γR2, disruption of normal mitotic spindle architecture through microtubule destabilization, and inhibition of tubulin polymerization.…”