Natural products of marine origin for the treatment of colorectal and pancreatic cancers: mechanisms and potential

Worldwide, CRC is the second most common cancer among women and the third most common among men. PC has a poor prognosis and high mortality, with 5-year relative survival of approximately 11.5%. Conventional chemo-therapy treatments for these cancers are limited due to severe side effects and the development of drug resistance. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop new and safe drugs for effective treatment of PC and CRC. In recent decades, marine natural products (MNPs) have shown great potential as drugs, but drug leads for treating various types of cancer, including CRC and PC, are scarce. The aim of the present study is to identify natural products from marine origin that have anti-cancer activity. The study includes the extraction of natural products by chromatographic methods, analytical characterization using mass spectroscopy and examination of biological activity in cancer cell cultures from the source of the colon and pancreas in in-vitro systems. The results indicated that exposure of colorectal and pancreatic cancer cells to the red seaweed Asparagopsis taxiformis extract, reduced cell viability in a dose dependent manner. Further studies are needed in order to identify the structure of the active compounds. The contribution of this research lies in the detection of new compounds from marine origin with anti-cancer activity. Moreover, understanding the molecular mechanisms by which these molecules act on cancer cells from the colon and pancreas origin can lead to the development of new strategies to activate those pathways and develop novel approaches of treating cancer.