Marine antitumor drugs: status, shortfalls and strategies

Abstract

Cancer is considered as one of the deadliest diseases in the medical field. Apart from the preventive therapies, it is important to find a curative measure which holds no loopholes and acts accurately and precisely to curb cancer. Over the past few decades, there have been advances in this field and there are many antitumor compounds available on the market, which are of natural as well as synthetic origin. Marine chemotherapy is well recognized nowadays and profound development has been achieved by researchers to deal with different molecular pathways of tumors. However, the marine environment has been less explored for the production of safe and novel antitumor compounds. The reason is a number of shortfalls in this field. Though ample reviews cover the importance and applications of various anticancerous compounds from marine natural products, in the present review, we have tried to bring the current status of antitumor research based on marine inhibitors of cancer signaling pathways. In addition, focus has been placed on the shortfalls and probable strategies in the arena of marine antitumor drug discovery.

Keywords: cancer signaling pathways; clinical status of antitumor drugs; marine antitumor compounds; shortfalls in cancer research.

Figure 1

Chemical structures of some marine derived antitumor compounds. The corresponding references have been superscripted after the compound name [–25].

Figure 1

Chemical structures of some marine derived antitumor compounds. The corresponding references have been superscripted after the compound name [–25].

Figure 2

Role of TNF-α induced NF-κB in carcinogenesis. During inflammation, TNF-α induced NF-κB acts on proliferating cells thereby causing their malfunction and leading to cancer.

Figure 3

Schematic representation of the mode of action of Topoisomerase inhibitors by (A) preventing covalent bond formation or (B) preventing DNA resealing. Here, represents Topoisomerase enzyme and represents Topoisomerase inhibitor.