Anticancer Drugs from Marine Flora: An Overview

Abstract

Marine floras, such as bacteria, actinobacteria, cyanobacteria, fungi, microalgae, seaweeds, mangroves, and other halophytes are extremely important oceanic resources, constituting over 90% of the oceanic biomass. They are taxonomically diverse, largely productive, biologically active, and chemically unique offering a great scope for discovery of new anticancer drugs. The marine floras are rich in medicinally potent chemicals predominantly belonging to polyphenols and sulphated polysaccharides. The chemicals have displayed an array of pharmacological properties especially antioxidant, immunostimulatory, and antitumour activities. The phytochemicals possibly activate macrophages, induce apoptosis, and prevent oxidative damage of DNA, thereby controlling carcinogenesis. In spite of vast resources enriched with chemicals, the marine floras are largely unexplored for anticancer lead compounds. Hence, this paper reviews the works so far conducted on this aspect with a view to provide a baseline information for promoting the marine flora-based anticancer research in the present context of increasing cancer incidence, deprived of the cheaper, safer, and potent medicines to challenge the dreadful human disease.

Screening for Anti-Cancer Compounds in Marine Organisms in Oman

“…[24][25][26] The complexity, poor prognosis and patient-, type-and stage-specificity of cancer requires the investigation and identification of novel compounds with effective clinical utility. In this study, the aim was to investigate the anti-cancer activity of extracts and compounds isolated from marine organisms in Oman.…”

Anticancer Activity of Papaver Somniferum

“…This was mainly due to the protective or healing effects of natural products such as fruits, vegetables and spices [2,3]. Almost every time when the diverse biological activities of natural products are studied intensively; the significant bioactive molecules of herbs and spices display antioxidant, antiinflammatory, immunomodulatory, anticarcinogenic, antithrombotic, and anticoagulant effects [4][5][6]. Especially the antitumor activity of natural products has recently attracted considerable attention by synthetic chemists.…”

The Marine Macroalgae of the Genus Ulva: Chemistry, Biological Activities and Potential Applications

“…The only report on chemical constituents of U. pertusa by Garson described isolation of two fatty acids: 2(R)-hydroxy-hexadecanoic acid (25), and 2-oxo-hexadecanoic acid (26) [18] (Figure 5). …”

“…In the recent years, the importance of marine algae as a supply for new bioactive substances has been growing very rapidly [15,[23][24][25][26][27] owing to their capacity to produce metabolites that exhibit various biological activities such as antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antiproliferative, (2), (3S,5R,6S,7E) 3,5,6-trihydroxy-7-megastigmen-9-one (3), (3R,5R,6R,7E) 3,5,6-trihydroxy-7-megastigmen-9-one (4), (3S,6R) 3,6-dihydroxy-4,7-megastigmadien-9-one (5), grasshopper ketone (6), and isololiolide (7). (12), labda-14-ene-3α,8α-diol (13), labda-14-ene-8α-9α-diol (14), labda-14-ene-8α-hydroxy-3-one (15), ent-labda-13(16)14-diene-3-one (16), ent-labda-13(16),14-diene (17), and ent-labda-13(16),14-diene-3α-ol (18 antiviral [28,29], antifungal [27], antineoplastic [28], anticancer, anti-obesity, antidiabetic, antihypertensive, antihyperlipidemic, and antioxidant [30].…”

“…It is important to mention also that ulvan, a major Sulfated Polysaccharide (SP) found in the cell wall of green algae, composed mainly of rhamnose, glucuronic acid, iduronic acid, xylose, glucose, sulphate with small amounts of iduronic acid and traces of galactose and represents 8-29% of the algae dry weight [25,26,[44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51]. The presence of the sulfate groups and the unusual chemical composition and structure of ulvan render it different biological properties [26,52,53].…”