Document of bibliographic reference 320085

BibliographicReference record

Type

Bibliographic resource

Type of document

Journal article

BibLvlCode

AS

Title

Antitumor potential of marine and freshwater lectins

Abstract

Often, even the most effective antineoplastic drugs currently used in clinic do not efficiently allow complete healing due to the related toxicity. The reason for the toxicity lies in the lack of selectivity for cancer cells of the vast majority of anticancer agents. Thus, the need for new potent anticancer compounds characterized by a better toxicological profile is compelling. Lectins belong to a particular class of non-immunogenic glycoproteins and have the characteristics to selectively bind specific sugar sequences on the surface of cells. This property is exploited to exclusively bind cancer cells and exert antitumor activity through the induction of different forms of regulated cell death and the inhibition of cancer cell proliferation. Thanks to the extraordinary biodiversity, marine environments represent a unique source of active natural compounds with anticancer potential. Several marine and freshwater organisms, ranging from the simplest alga to the most complex vertebrate, are amazingly enriched in these proteins. Remarkably, all studies gathered in this review show the impressive anticancer effect of each studied marine lectin combined with irrelevant toxicity in vitro and in vivo and pave the way to design clinical trials to assess the real antineoplastic potential of these promising proteins. It provides a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn.

WebOfScience code

https://www.webofscience.com/wos/woscc/full-record/WOS:000513184600012

Bibliographic citation

Catanzaro, E.; Calcabrini, C.; Bishayee, A.; Fimognari, C. (2019). Antitumor potential of marine and freshwater lectins. Mar. Drugs 18(1): 11. https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/md18010011

Topic

Marine

Fresh water

Is peer reviewed

true

Access rights

open access

Is accessible for free

true