ANTICANCER COMPOUNDS: FROM THE OCEAN TO THE CLINIC

摘要

Carmen Cuevas and colleagues present the isolation, structural elucidation, total synthesis, and biological evaluation of a novel and highly promising class of marine natural products (DOI: 10.1021/ja404578u). The polyketides, PM050489 and PM060184, inhibit cell division by interacting with tubulin, one of the most effective anticancer targets to date. Paclitaxel is arguably the most well-known and commercially successful mitosis inhibitor; intriguingly, these new compounds isolated from the Madagascan sponge Lithoplocamia lithistoides show a distinct biochemical mechanism of interaction with tubulin.