Discovery of Anticancer Agents of Diverse Natural Origin br

Research progress from mainly over the lastfiveyears is described for a multidisciplinary collaborative programproject directed toward the discovery of potential anticancer agentsfrom a broad range of taxonomically defined organisms. Selectedlead compounds with potential as new antitumor agents that arerepresentative of considerable structural diversity have continuedto be obtained from each of tropical plants, terrestrial and aquaticcyanobacteria, andfilamentous fungi. Recently, a new focus hasbeen on the investigation of the constituents of U.S. lichens andtheir fungal mycobionts. A medicinal chemistry and pharmacoki-netics component of the project has optimized structurally selected lead natural products, leading to enhanced cytotoxic potenciesagainst selected cancer cell lines. Biological testing has shown several compounds to have in vivo activity, and relevant preliminarystructure-activity relationship and mechanism of action studies have been performed. Several promising lead compounds worthy offurther investigation have been identified from the most recent collaborative work performed.