Marine natural Products with a Special Reference to Aplidine as a New Bioactive Compound in Anti-Cancer Class

The marine environment has proven to be a very rich source of extremely potent compounds that have demonstrated significant activities in antitumor, anti-parasitic, anti-microbial, anti-coagulants’, antiviral, cytotoxic compounds, anti-inflammatory, proteins. Aplidine is a promosing anti-tumor agent that is derived from the Mediterranean tunicate Aplidum albicans. We have found that aplidine at nm concentrations (10-100 nm) induced apoptosis in human leukemic cell lines and in primary leukemic cell culture from leukemic patients. Aplidine induced a rapid and sustained c jun NH2 –terminal kinase activation and apoptosis. Thus, Aplidine is an extremely potent and rapid apoptic inducer on leukemic cells that triggers Fas/CD 95and mitochondrial mediated apoptotic singling routes, and shows a rather selective apoptotic action on cancer cells and activated Tcells.