From marine origin to therapeutics: the antitumor potential of marine algae-derived compounds

Marine environment has demonstrated to be an interesting source of compounds with uncommon and unique chemical features on which themolecularmodeling and chemical synthesis of new drugs can be based with greater efficacy and specificity for the therapeutics. Cancer is a growing public health threat, and despite the advances in biomedical research and technology, there is an urgent need for the development of new anticancer drugs. In this field, it is estimated that more than 60% of commercially available anticancer drugs are natural biomimetic inspired. Among the marine organisms, algae have revealed to be one of the major sources of new compounds of marine origin, including those exhibiting antitumor and cytotoxic potential. These compounds demonstrated ability to mediate specific inhibitory activities on a number of key cellular processes, including apoptosis pathways, angiogenesis, migration and invasion, in both in vitro and in vivo models, revealing their potential to be used as anticancer drugs. This review will focus on the bioactive molecules from algae with antitumor potential, from their origin to their potential uses, with special emphasis to the alga Sphaerococcus coronopifolius as a producer of cytotoxic compounds.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Sphaerococcus coronopifolius bromoterpenes as potential cancer stem celltargeting agents

Cancer is one of the major threats to human health and, due to distinct factors, it is expected that its incidence will increase in the next decades leading to an urgent need of new anticancer drugs development. Ongoing experimental and clinical observations propose that cancer cells with stem-like properties (CSCs) are involved on the development of lung cancer chemoresistance. As tumour growth and metastasis can be controlled by tumourassociated stromal cells, the main goal of this study was to access the antitumor potential of five bromoterpenes isolated from Sphaerococcus coronopifolius red alga to target CSCs originated in a co-culture system of fibroblast and lung malignant cells. Cytotoxicity of compounds (10–500 μM; 72 h) was evaluated on monocultures of several malignant and non-malignant cells lines (HBF, BEAS-2B, RenG2, SC-DRenG2) and the effects estimated by MTT assay. Co-cultures of non-malignant human bronchial fibroblasts (HBF) and malignant human bronchial epithelial cells (RenG2) were implemented and the compounds ability to selectively kill CSCs was evaluated by sphere forming assay. The interleucine-6 (IL-6) levels were also determined as cytokine is crucial for CSCs. Regarding the monocultures results bromosphaerol selectively eliminated the malignant cells. Both 12S-hydroxy-bromosphaerol and 12R-hydroxy-bromosphaerol steroisomers were cytotoxic towards non-malignant bronchial BEAS-2B cell line, IC50 of 4.29 and 4.30 μM respectively. However, none of the steroisomers induced damage in the HBFs. As to the co-cultures, 12R-hydroxy-bromosphaerol revealed the highest cytotoxicity and ability to abrogate the malignant stem cells; however its effects were IL-6 independent. The results presented here are the first evidence of the potential of these bromoterpenes to abrogate CSCs opening new research opportunities. The 12R-hydroxy-bromosphaerol revealed to be the most promising compound to be test in more complex living models.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Identification of Spongionella compounds as cyclosporine A mimics

Marine sponges are found to be a wide source of bioactive compounds with different effects such as anti-inflammatory or anticancer actions among others. Cyclophilin A (Cyp A) is a target protein implicated in the mechanism of action of immunosuppressive compounds such as Cyclosporine A (CsA). In the present paper we studied the binding between 4 Spongionella compounds (Gracilins H, A, L and Tetrahydroaplysulphurin-1) and Cyp A immobilized over a CM5 sensor chip. Thus, we found that Spongionella compounds showed to have similar binding affinities than CsA with dissociation equilibrium constant in the range. Next, the effect of these Spongionella isolated compounds was tested over calcineurin phosphatase activity. The same than CsA, Gracilin H, A and Tetrahydroaplysulphurin-1 were able to inhibit phosphatase activity once the complex between Cyp A-CsA/Spongionella compounds was formed. The ability to avoid the dephosphorylation of NFATc1 was also checked in human T cells isolated from peripheral blood. First, cells were pre-treated with Spongionella compounds or CsA following by Concanavalin A (Con A) stimulation. In these conditions nuclear NFATc1 levels were diminished either by CsA or Gracilin A, L, and Tetrahydroaplysulphurin-1 treatment. Moreover, as happens with CsA due to the inhibition of NFATc1, Interleukine-2 (IL-2) released to the culture medium was significantly decreased with all Spongionella compounds. Results conclude that, Spongionella derivatives preserve T lymphocytes from activation modulating the same pathway than CsA. Thus, this mechanism of action suggests that these compounds could be interesting candidates in drug development as immunosuppressive or anti-inflammatory drugs