Antitumor compounds from actinomycetes in deep-sea water of Toyama bay

Abstract

Actinomycetes are the richest source of bioactive small molecules with high structural complexity and diversity which have been an inspiration to drug development. After the intensive screening efforts from soil-derived actinomycetes over a half century, it became necessary to exploit new microbial resources for discovering new drug leads. The deep-sea water in Toyama Bay is known as the "specific deep-sea water of Japan Sea" because Sea of Japan is almost enclosed from the Pacific Ocean and the water exchanges very slowly with the neighboring seas. Furthermore, high dissolved oxygen concentration in this sea water gives rise to high biological productivity. As a part of investigation on the deep-sea water in Toyama Bay, we undertook the isolation of actinomycetes from deep-sea water for evaluation of bioactive compound production. This chapter summarizes the chemistry and biology of antitumor compounds produced by actinomycetes collected from the deep-sea water in Toyama Bay.