Anti-cancer products from marine sponges: Progress and promise.

Anti-cancer products from marine sponges: Progress and promise. Recent Pat Drug Deliv Formul. 2015 May 29; Authors: Shakeri A, Sahebkar A Abstract The marine environment covers more than 70% of the planet's surface, and its organisms are rich sources of bioactive compounds with potent pharmacological effects. Among all marine organisms investigated to date, sponges (phylum Porifera) have emerged as a valuable source for discovering cytotoxic and anti-cancer drugs owing to their diverse content of secondary metabolites with various chemical structures. Hitherto, around 15,000 sponges have been identified and more than 5,000 different compounds have been isolated and structurally characterized, contributing to about 30% of all marine natural products discovered to date [1]. Sponges are classified in three major classes: Calcarea, Demospongiae, and Hexactinellida [2]. Among them, three genera namely Haliclona, Petrosia and Discodemia have been identified to be the richest source of biologically active compounds [3]. The chemical diversity of sponge products is high, and isolated compounds could be classified as alkaloids, terpenoids, glycosides, phenols, phenazines, polyketides, fatty acid products and peptides, amino acid analogues, nucleosides, porphyrins, aliphatic cyclic peroxides and sterols. An important feature of sponge-derived compounds is their ability to interact with different molecular targets that are implicated in carcino...
Source: Recent Patents on Drug Delivery and Formulation - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Tags: Recent Pat Drug Deliv Formul Source Type: research