Marine sponge sesterpenoids as potent apoptosis-inducing factors in human Carcinoma cell lines

Abstract Cancer is a leading cause of death in industrialized countries. Although mortality rates have declined in recent years owing to earlier detection and more options in treatment, most cancers remain incurable. Mutations and epigenetic alterations of cancer genes promote the malignant transformation of cancer progenitor cells by disrupting key processes involved in normal growth control and tissue homeostasis. In addition, tumor development and progression are also dependent on the microenvironment surrounding the malignant cell. Conventional chemotherapy for cancer utilizes cytotoxic agents that elicit their therapeutic effect partly through apoptosis induction. Moreover, overexpression of anti-apoptotic proteins in cancer cells can inhibit programmed cell death and engender chemoresistance. Therefore, chemotherapeutic interventions fail to determine complete health in patients Health. Conversely, drugs developed more recently, known as "targeted therapy, may show less unwanted toxicity, although they are generally cytostatic. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop new effective drugs. Natural products play a dominant role in the discovery of lead compounds for the development of drugs to treat human diseases. Terpenoids are by far the largest class of natural products. Within this class of compounds, the sesterterpenes form a rare group of isoprenoids, which occur in widely differing source. Particularly, marine organisms Marine organisms have provided a large number of sesterterpenoids Sesterterpenoids, possessing novel carbon skeleton and a wide variety of biological activities. It has been largely reported that the anti-inflammatory activity is the most relevant among the biological activities observed for marine sesterterpenoids. Herein, we describe the link between chronic inflammation and cancer, and the more significant biologically active sesterterpenoids Sesterterpenoids from marine organisms, grouped in a biogenetic sequence. Moreover, natural products Natural products that do not contain 25 carbon atoms but are obviously sesterterpene derivatives are also included. The high potential for some of these products suggested that they could be developed as drugs for the treatment of inflammation and cancer-related inflammation. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015.