MARINE ORGANISMS FROM THE NORTHEASTERN BRAZILIAN COAST AS A SOURCE OF NEW MOLECULES WITH PHARMACEUTICAL POTENTIAL

LETÍCIA VERAS COSTA-LOTUFO (1,2)

(1) Departamento de Fisiologia e Farmacologia, UFC, Fortaleza, CE; (2) Instituto de Ciências do Mar, UFC, Fortaleza, CE.

Studies with marine natural products showed a variety of organic compounds derived from marine species with known and novel biological activities. In fact, many aspects contributed to increase the interest in this research field, and the great biodiversity found in the marine environment is one of the most important. Brazil is the largest country in South America, with more than 8.500 Km of shore line faced to the Atlantic Ocean, is a gifted country in terms of marine biodiversity. The northeastern region of Brazil has the largest tropical coast extension of the country and remains virtually unexplored by research groups that study natural products. In the recent years, our research group started a screening program in the northeastern Brazilian coast to verify the biomedical potential of marine organisms, optimizing the efforts on the isolation and characterization of bioactive metabolites. In this program, we focus on the bioprospection of cytotoxic and anticancer compounds in ascidians, sponges, cnidarians and macroalgae collected off the coast of Ceará state. In a first approach, it was evaluated the cytotoxicity of 54 crude extracts on the following bioassays: 1) antiproliferative activity on cultured tumor cell lines; 2) hemolytic effect on mouse erythrocytes and 3) anti-mitotic activity on sea-urchin eggs. Based on these results, we selected 13 species to follow with the bioguided extract fractionation. The ascidian Eudistoma vannamei is the most promising one, leading to the isolation of aminoacids derivatives with very strong cytotoxicity (IC50 < 0,05 mg/mL). On the other hand, alginates isolated from Sargassum vulgare are also considered very promising since they strongly inhibited in vivo tumor progression after oral administration in mice. These data highlights the pharmaceutical potential of Brazilian marine organisms.

KEY WORDS: ascidians, sponges, algae, anticancer potential.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT: FUNCAP, CNPq, FINEP.

CORRESPONDENCE TO: Letícia V. Costa-Lotufo, Rua Cel Nunes de Melo, 1127, Rodolfo Teófilo, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brasil, CEP: 60430-270. Phone: + 55 85 3366 8255. Fax: + 55 85 3366 8333. Email: lvcosta@secrel.com.br