[Anti-tumor natural products isolated from marine organisms]

Marine organisms comprise over half a million species. Due to their unusual living environment as compared with terrestrial organisms, marine organisms produce a variety of metabolic substances which often have various unprecedented chemical structures. In recent years, an increasing number of marine natural products have been reported to exhibit various biological activities such as antimicrobial, physiological, and pharmacological ones. Some metabolites have also been noted by their significant toxicities. The effort to find out anti-tumor substances from marine organisms has been also undertaken in recent years, and several novel compounds (e.g. peptide, polyether, alkaloid, prostanoid etc.), with anti-tumor activities, have been isolated from marine sponges, octocorals, marine algae, tunicates, nudibranchs, bryozoans, and so on. In this article, those chemically clarified anti-tumor compounds isolated from marine organisms were reviewed.