Dietary carotenoid fucoxanthin as a promising biomarker to target the cancer cells: A focused review

Abstract

Cancer, which ranks among the topmost prevalent diseases in the world, can obtain a good outcome with appropriate surgery and/or chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is an effective treatment for many types of cancer, however, its toxicity in normal cells and acquired tumor resistance to the drug users are considered the main barriers. New strategies have been proposed to increase the success of anticancer drugs; namely, combination with natural dietary compounds, decreasing the drug dose administered, and thereby reducing its toxicity to normal cells. Diet-induced lifestyle modification is suggested to be effective in reducing the risk of human cancer; therefore, experimental studies using diet-derived compounds have been conducted in modern days to explore the prevention of cancer. Seaweeds are rich in bioactive compounds,viz., phloroglucinol, fucoxanthin, fucoidan, etc., with attractive biological effects such as chemopreventive and chemotherapeutic effects against cancer. Seaweed fucoxanthin is one of the dietary carotenoids of the xanthophyl family and is predominantly present in edible brown algae, such as Undaria pinnatifida (Family: Alariaceae), Phaeodactylum tricornutum (Family: Phaeodactylaceae), and Himanthalia elongate (Family: Himanthaliaceae) that are consumed frequently in Asian countries. Several mechanisms, namely; antioxidants, cell cycle arrest, induction of cell death, inhibition of metastasis, and angiogenesis have been mentioned as responsible for its anticancer activity. This review focuses on the potential cytotoxic effect of the bioactive compound fucoxanthin on diverse cell lines. Also, this report focuses on the current knowledge of fucoxanthin could be a promising compound for cancer therapy by acting on most of the classical hallmarks of tumor cells and further research opportunities are discussed.

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