Phytochemistry Reviews

, Volume 13, Issue 1, pp 123–137 | Cite as

Natural products as leads to antitumor drugs

Article
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Abstract

The discussion in this short review emphasizes that the main and future source of novel natural products as leads to antitumor agents is probably in the areas of biology that cannot be seen, i.e. the microbial world. The review discusses the role of microbes in the production of secondary metabolites that were initially thought to be from marine invertebrates and goes on to discuss the potential for a number of well-known anticancer agents isolated from plant sources to actually be the products of a microbe-plant interaction and finishes with a discussion of the potential of microbial “cryptic clusters” as sources of novel agents/leads to anti-tumor treatments.

Keywords

Plants Marine invertebrates Microbial commensals Natural products Antitumor agents 
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Notes

References

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht (outside the USA)  2013

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Natural Products Branch, Developmental Therapeutics ProgramFrederick National LaboratoryFrederickUSA

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