Identification of the Marine Alkaloid Lepadin A as Potential Inducer of Immunogenic Cell Death

Natural products and their synthetic analogs and derivatives are a traditional source of bioactive molecules with potential development as drug candidates. In this context, Marine Natural Products (MNPs) represent a rich reservoir of diverse molecular skeletons with potential pharmacological activity that, so far, has been mostly explored in cancer and infectious diseases. Starting from the development of a novel bioassay-guided screening platform for immunomodulatory compounds from an in-house MNPs library, we report the identification of the alkaloid lepadin A as a new model compound for immune-based anticancer activity with characteristics that suggest a possible mechanism as Immunogenic Cell Death inducer. The work describes the molecular-based bioprospecting in the Gulf of Naples together with the bioassay-guided fractionation, the chemical characterization of the alkaloid, and the biological activity in mouse dendritic cells (D1).

Automated summary

Natural products and their derivatives are important sources for potential drug candidates. Marine natural products (MNPs) are a rich resource with potential pharmacological activities. In this study, a novel bioassay-guided screening platform was developed to identify a new immune-based anticancer compound from MNPs.