Anti-Cancer Bioactive Molecules from Microbial Sources

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Background

Worldwide cancer incidence and mortality have always been a concern to the community. Cancer is one of the world's major killers, with an annual mortality rate of 16.4 million people projected by 2040. Its mortality rate has generally declined over the years; however, there is still an increased mortality rate in poorer countries that receive considerable attention from healthcare professionals. About 200 distinct forms of cancer affect humans, and most of them have a small handful of approved therapeutic medicines. Furthermore, because certain forms of cancerous tumors are detected at advanced stages, present medicines are ineffective against them, contributing to a poor prognosis. To combat cancer-related mortality, it is critical to discover novel potent anti-cancer medicines. Anti-cancer drug discovery has seen a lot of technological development in the last few years. Screening for cancer drugs has moved forward from the traditional cell-based screening that looks for antiproliferative effects to specific approach to scan for molecules that can target prominent proteins or pathways in cancer. These employed technologies will help to find molecules selective for cancer cells while avoiding normal cells, thus improving efficacy and selectivity in cancer therapy.

The search for bioactive molecules from microorganisms has received growing attention in recent decades. There are many microbe-derived anti-cancer agents that have been evaluated through clinical trials. In particular, actinomycin D, bleomycin, anthracyclines, epirubicin, and doxorubicin are some of the notable examples of anti-cancerous bioactive compounds synthesized by microorganisms.

In this Research Topic, we invite Original Research, Review articles, and Protocols to provide a deeper insight into the development, properties, and mechanistic studies of anti-cancer substances originated from microorganisms. We welcome Reviews, Mini-reviews, and Original Research articles that provide an in-depth understanding of, but are not limited to, the following subthemes:

• Novel chemotherapeutic agents from microbial sources
• Computational approaches for high-throughput microbial chemotherapeutic screening and further experimental validation of activity
• Targeted delivery approaches for synthesis of microbe-based nanoparticles as anti-cancer chemotherapeutics
• A metagenomics approach for screening the anti-cancerous molecules from microorganisms and further experimental validation of activity
• Microbial amphiphiles as anti-cancer chemotherapeutics
• Intra- and extracellular microbial mediated synthesis of nanomaterials/nanocomposites for a potential anti-cancer agent
• Bacterial proteins and peptides for anti-cancer agents
• Microbial polymers: biosynthesis, modifications and chemotherapeutics application
• Toxicity evaluation of microbial mediated chemotherapeutic agents

Keywords: Kinase inhibitors, Microbial amphiphiles, chemotherapeutic, microbial biopolymers, microbe-based nanoparticles, toxicity evaluation, targeted delivery

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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