ANTICANCER POTENTIAL OF MARINE ALGAE A CHEMOINFORMATICS APPROACH

Abstract

Cancer is a dreadful human disease, increasing with changing life style, nutrition, newlineand global warming. It is a leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for 7.6 million newlinedeaths (around 13% of all deaths) in 2008. Breast cancer is the most frequently newlinediagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancer death among females, accounting for newline23% of the total cancer cases and 14% of the cancer deaths. Lung cancer is the leading newlinecancer site in males, comprising 17% of the total new cancer cases and 23% of the total newlinecancer deaths. Lung, stomach, liver, colon and breast cancer cause the most cancer newlinedeaths each year (Jemal et al. 2011). About 70% of all cancer deaths in 2008 occurred in newlinelow- and middle-income countries. Deaths from cancer worldwide are projected to newlinecontinue rising, with an estimated 13.1 million deaths in 2030 (Ferlay et al. 2010). newlineIn India, 556,400 people died of cancer in 2010 and 71% cancer deaths occurred newlinein people aged 30-69 years. The three most common fatal cancers were oral (including lip newlineand pharynx 45,800 [22.9%]), stomach (25,200 [12.6%]), and lung (including trachea and newlinelarynx, 22,900 [11.4%]) in men, and cervical (33,400 [17.1%]), stomach (27,500 [14.1%]), newlineand breast (19,900 [10.2%]) in women (Dikshit et al. 2012). newline1.2 Cancer Biology newlineCancer known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a broad group of various newlinediseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. Carcinogenesis is a complex process newlinecontrolled by various signal transduction pathways linked to processes such as newlineinflammation, cell differentiation and survival, and metastasis. Most of the players of newlinethese pathways are interrelated and irregularities in their crosstalk result in impairment of newlinecellular functions leading to tumour generation and progression (Bhatnagar and Kim newline2010). There are over 200 different known cancers that afflict humans. Cancers areprimarily an environmental disease with 90 95% of cases attributed to environmental newlinefactors and 5 10% due to genetics (Anand et al. 2008). newlineIn the past three decades, huge effort was spent