Natural Products of Marine Origin for the Treatment of Colorectal and Pancreatic Cancers: Mechanisms and Potential

Abstract

Gastrointestinal cancer refers to malignancy of the accessory organs of digestion, and it includes colorectal cancer (CRC) and pancreatic cancer (PC). Worldwide, CRC is the second most common cancer among women and the third most common among men. PC has a poor prognosis and high mortality, with 5-year relative survival of approximately 11.5%. Conventional chemotherapy treatments for these cancers are limited due to severe side effects and the development of drug resistance. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop new and safe drugs for effective treatment of PC and CRC. Historically, natural sources—plants in particular—have played a dominant role in traditional medicine used to treat a wide spectrum of diseases. In recent decades, marine natural products (MNPs) have shown great potential as drugs, but drug leads for treating various types of cancer, including CRC and PC, are scarce. To date, marine-based drugs have been used against leukemia, metastatic breast cancer, soft tissue sarcoma, and ovarian cancer. In this review, we summarized existing studies describing MNPs that were found to have an effect on CRC and PC, and we discussed the potential mechanisms of action of MNPs as well as future prospects for their use in treating these cancers.

Antiproliferative, Antioxidant, Chemopreventive and Antiangiogenic Potential of Chromatographic Fractions from Anemonia sulcata with and without Its Symbiont Symbiodinium in Colorectal Cancer Therapy

“…In response to these demands, the vast biodiversity of marine organisms may be a source of new bioactive compounds (cytarabine [19], eribulin [20], trabectedin [21], etc.) and/or enhancers of the existing treatments [22,23]. Currently, there is no clinical evidence of MNP synergy with chemotherapeutic drugs [24][25][26][27] and the studies related to this are mainly based on plant extracts [28][29][30][31][32][33].…”

Natural Products and Pharmacological Properties of Symbiotic Bacillota (Firmicutes) of Marine Macroalgae

“…Natural products are molecules produced by organisms that have played a vital role in drug discovery [1]. Generally, the terrestrial environment and its organisms are wellstudied for bioactive compounds, and this is due to the relative ease of their sampling [2] and culturing in the laboratory [3].…”