Journal Article

Marine Sponges and Bacteria as Challenging Sources of Enzyme Inhibitors for Pharmacological Applications

Costantini, Susan, Costantini, Maria, Ruocco, Nadia, Palumbo, Flora

2017

Overview

Enzymes play key roles in different cellular processes, for example, in signal transduction, cell differentiation and proliferation, metabolic processes, DNA damage repair, apoptosis, and response to stress. A deregulation of enzymes has been considered one of the first causes of several diseases, including cancers. In the last several years, enzyme inhibitors, being good candidates as drugs in the pathogenic processes, have received an increasing amount of attention for their potential application in pharmacology. The marine environment is considered a challenging source of enzyme inhibitors for pharmacological applications. In this review, we report on secondary metabolites with enzyme inhibitory activity, focusing our attention on marine sponges and bacteria as promising sources. In the case of sponges, we only reported the kinase inhibitors, because this class was the most representative isolated so far from these marine organisms.

• Publisher: MDPI AG,MDPI
• Subject: Animals / Apoptosis / Aquatic Organisms - metabolism / Bacteria / Bacteria - metabolism / Cell differentiation / Deoxyribonucleic acid / Deregulation / Differentiation (biology) / DNA / DNA damage / DNA repair / Drug development / Enzyme inhibitors / Enzyme Inhibitors - metabolism / Enzymes / Inhibitors / Marine environment / Marine invertebrates / Marine organisms / Metabolites / Pathogens / Pharmacology / Porifera - metabolism / Proliferation / Review / Secondary metabolites / Signal processing / Signal transduction / Sponges / Transduction