Cancer, one of the major causes of human morbidity and mortality, is a disease caused by the uncontrolled division of abnormal cells. Nature continues to produce a great wealth of natural molecules endowed with cytotoxic activity in the treatment of malignant diseases. Presently, natural products have played a pivotal role in cancer chemotherapy and chemoprevention for over half a century and provided established anticancer drugs, for example, camptothecin, doxorubicin, taxol, podophyllotoxin, adriamycin, vinblastine and vincristine, new lead compounds for synthetic modifications, and for understanding cellular and molecular mechanisms of actions for their anticancer potentials. The search for naturally occurring compounds having cytotoxic significance has continued in recent years, with the constituents of marine fauna and flora, as well as those of terrestrial microorganisms and plants, being investigated for their anticancer activities. It has been found that only ~20% of the anticancer agents approved in the period 1981-2010 were purely synthetic, whereas the remaining ~80% were either natural products or inspired by natural products, indicating that research into structures from nature is indispensable in the search for anticancer lead-compounds.

中文翻译：

---

社论

癌症是人类发病和死亡的主要原因之一，是由异常细胞不受控制的分裂引起的疾病。在恶性疾病的治疗中，大自然继续产生大量具有细胞毒活性的天然分子。目前，天然产物在癌症化学疗法和化学预防中已经发挥了举足轻重的作用，并且已经提供了成熟的抗癌药物，例如喜树碱，阿霉素，紫杉醇，鬼臼毒素，阿霉素，长春碱和长春新碱，用于合成修饰的新的先导化合物，以及了解细胞和分子的抗癌作用机理。近年来，人们一直在寻找具有细胞毒性意义的天然化合物，其中包括海洋动植物的成分，以及陆地微生物和植物的抗癌活性正在研究中。已经发现，在1981-2010年间批准的抗癌药中，只有约20％是纯合成的，而其余的约80％是天然产物或受天然产物的启发，这表明对自然结构的研究是必不可少的。寻找抗癌的铅化合物。