An Updated Review on Marine Anticancer Compounds: The Use of Virtual Screening for the Discovery of Small-Molecule Cancer Drugs
by
Verónica Ruiz-Torres 1, Jose Antonio Encinar 1
, María Herranz-López 1, Almudena Pérez-Sánchez 1, Vicente Galiano 2, 
Enrique Barrajón-Catalán 1,* and 
Vicente Micol 1,3
Verónica Ruiz-Torres 1, Jose Antonio Encinar 1, María Herranz-López 1, Almudena Pérez-Sánchez 1, Vicente Galiano 2, Enrique Barrajón-Catalán 1,* and Vicente Micol 1,3
1
Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IBMC), Miguel Hernández University (UMH), Avda. Universidad s/n, Elche 03202, Spain
2
Physics and Computer Architecture Department, Miguel Hernández University, Avda. Universidad s/n, Elche 03202, Spain
3
CIBER, Fisiopatología de la Obesidad y la Nutrición, CIBERobn, Instituto de Salud Carlos III., Palma de Mallorca 07122, Spain (CB12/03/30038)
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Molecules 2017, 22(7), 1037; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules22071037
Received: 22 May 2017 / Revised: 9 June 2017 / Accepted: 19 June 2017 / Published: 23 June 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Metabolites of Terrestrial and Marine Origin on the Age-Related Disorders)
Marine secondary metabolites are a promising source of unexploited drugs that have a wide structural diversity and have shown a variety of biological activities. These compounds are produced in response to the harsh and competitive conditions that occur in the marine environment. Invertebrates are considered to be among the groups with the richest biodiversity. To date, a significant number of marine natural products (MNPs) have been established as antineoplastic drugs. This review gives an overview of MNPs, both in research or clinical stages, from diverse organisms that were reported as being active or potentially active in cancer treatment in the past seventeen years (from January 2000 until April 2017) and describes their putative mechanisms of action. The structural diversity of MNPs is also highlighted and compared with the small-molecule anticancer drugs in clinical use. In addition, this review examines the use of virtual screening for MNP-based drug discovery and reveals that classical approaches for the selection of drug candidates based on ADMET (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity) filtering may miss potential anticancer lead compounds. Finally, we introduce a novel and publically accessible chemical library of MNPs for virtual screening purposes.
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Keywords:
marine natural product; invertebrate; cancer; virtual screening
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
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MDPI and ACS Style
Ruiz-Torres, V.; Encinar, J.A.; Herranz-López, M.; Pérez-Sánchez, A.; Galiano, V.; Barrajón-Catalán, E.; Micol, V. An Updated Review on Marine Anticancer Compounds: The Use of Virtual Screening for the Discovery of Small-Molecule Cancer Drugs. Molecules 2017, 22, 1037.
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