Department of Integrative Marine Ecology, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, 80121 Naples, Italy.
Mar Drugs. 2018 May 15;16(5):165. doi: 10.3390/md16050165.
Cancer is the leading cause of death globally and finding new therapeutic agents for cancer treatment remains a major challenge in the pursuit for a cure. This paper presents an overview on microalgae with anti-cancer activities. Microalgae are eukaryotic unicellular plants that contribute up to 40% of global primary productivity. They are excellent sources of pigments, lipids, carotenoids, omega-3 fatty acids, polysaccharides, vitamins and other fine chemicals, and there is an increasing demand for their use as nutraceuticals and food supplements. Some microalgae are also reported as having anti-cancer activity. In this review, we report the microalgal species that have shown anti-cancer properties, the cancer cell lines affected by algae and the concentrations of compounds/extracts tested to induce arrest of cell growth. We also report the mediums used for growing microalgae that showed anti-cancer activity and compare the bioactivity of these microalgae with marine anticancer drugs already on the market and in phase III clinical trials. Finally, we discuss why some microalgae can be promising sources of anti-cancer compounds for future development.
癌症是全球主要的死亡原因，寻找新的癌症治疗方法仍然是治愈癌症的主要挑战。本文综述了具有抗癌活性的微藻。微藻是真核单细胞植物，对全球初级生产力的贡献率高达 40%。它们是色素、脂质、类胡萝卜素、ω-3 脂肪酸、多糖、维生素和其他精细化学品的极好来源，人们对它们作为营养保健品和食品补充剂的需求也在不断增加。一些微藻也被报道具有抗癌活性。在这篇综述中，我们报告了具有抗癌特性的微藻物种、受藻类影响的癌细胞系以及为诱导细胞生长停滞而测试的化合物/提取物的浓度。我们还报告了显示抗癌活性的微藻所使用的培养基，并将这些微藻的生物活性与已上市和处于 III 期临床试验阶段的海洋抗癌药物进行了比较。最后，我们讨论了为什么一些微藻可能是未来开发抗癌化合物的有前途的来源。
