Antiproliferative Marine Natural Products Inducing Non-apoptotic Cell Death or Chemosentisizing Cancer Cells
A special issue of Marine Drugs (ISSN 1660-3397).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 August 2020) | Viewed by 11182
Special Issue Editor
Interests: anticancer compounds; heterocycles; melanoma; microalgae; natural products; pharmacology; pigments; tumor phototherapy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Despite major advances in the treatment of tumors, the cancer research community is still actively searching for new natural products with antiproliferative activity, which are able to overcome intrinsic or acquired chemotherapy resistance.
While for many years cytotoxic agents have been developed to target apoptotic cell death as a main method of treating cancer, with effective results in numerous tumor models, it is now widely recognized that evasion of apoptotic cell death is one of the characteristics of chemoresistant cancer cells. This suggests that identification of molecules targeting cell death pathways that are different from caspase-dependent intrinsic apoptosis (e.g., anoikis, autophagic cell death, cornification, entosis, mitotic catastrophe, necroptosis, netosis, parthanatos, pyroptosis, and ferroptosis) could offer novel cancer treatment options. There is also a growing interest for non-toxic and cytostatic natural products that are able to chemosensitize tumor cells to conventional cytotoxic drugs, thus limiting their toxic side effects and delaying the appearance of acquired chemoresistance.
Marine organisms represent a prolific potential source of antiproliferative natural products; the first marine drugs identified were potent cytotoxic and antiproliferative molecules. Since these pioneering works, thousands of molecules providing original chemical scaffolds and mechanisms of action have been discovered, and there is clear potential for a rapid expansion in marine drug developments in the next few decades. It is worth mentioning that among the marine molecules that have been approved as drugs, or have reached clinical trials, most of them are anticancer drugs disrupting molecular targets regulating DNA replication, cell cycle, cytoskeletal dynamics, or cytoplasmic membrane integrity. Furthermore, certain marine drugs exhibit original mechanisms of actions, targeting specific organelles or cellular processes. However, despite this promise, many limitations are yet to be overcome. These include the need to develop economically sustainable biotechnological or chemical production of bioactive compounds often limited by molecular complexity, the necessity to screen and investigate the pharmacological activity of identified compounds using diversified and relevant assays, and the need to study the ecophysiology of source species and the valorization of metagenomic data for non-cultivable organisms.
In this Special Issue, we will explore all aspects of antiproliferative marine natural products inducing cell deaths that are different from caspase-dependent intrinsic apoptosis or chemosentisizing cancer cells to anticancer compounds, including chemical diversity within marine taxa, chemical ecology research aimed at understanding the natural function of these bioactive compounds, innovations in extraction, and the purification and structural elucidation of complex antiproliferative metabolites, as well as biotechnology developments dedicated to their sustainable production. We are also interested in highlighting innovative research that will enhance our understanding of the cellular and molecular pharmacology of these antiproliferative molecules, or discussing novel mechanisms of action and innovative therapeutic applications. Additionally, we will also emphasize research aimed at improving or accelerating the screening, chemical synthesis, and clinical development of these marine drugs exhibiting original modes of action.
As Guest Editor, I invite you to contribute to the Special Issue on “Antiproliferative Marine Natural products inducing non-apoptotic cell death or chemosentisizing cancer cells”. Original research reports and reviews will be published online in Marine Drugs.
Dr. Laurent Picot
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- biotechnology and metagenomics
- cancer
- chemical ecology
- chemosensitization
- mechanism of action
- multidrug resistance
- non-apoptotic cell death
- organic synthesis and structural elucidation
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