Roel Sánchez, MaríaRubiolo Gaytán, Juan AndrésGuerra Varela, JorgeSilva, Siguara B. L.Thomas, Olivier P.Cabezas Sáinz, PabloSánchez Piñón, LauraLópez López, RafaelBotana López, Luis Miguel2021-05-042021-05-042016Roel M., Rubiolo J. A., Guerra-Varela J., Silva S. B. L., Thomas O. P., Cabezas-Sainz P., Sánchez L., López R., Botana L. M. Marine guanidine alkaloids crambescidins inhibit tumor growth and activate intrinsic apoptotic signaling inducing tumor regression in a colorectal carcinoma zebrafish xenograft model. Oncotarget. 2016; 7: 83071-83087. Retrieved from https://www.oncotarget.com/article/13068/text/1949-2553http://hdl.handle.net/10347/26114The marine environment constitutes an extraordinary resource for the discovery of new therapeutic agents. In the present manuscript we studied the effect of 3 different sponge derived guanidine alkaloids, crambescidine-816, -830, and -800. We show that these compounds strongly inhibit tumor cell proliferation by down-regulating cyclin-dependent kinases 2/6 and cyclins D/A expression while up-regulating the cell cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors -2A, -2D and -1A. We also show that these guanidine compounds disrupt tumor cell adhesion and cytoskeletal integrity promoting the activation of the intrinsic apoptotic signaling, resulting in loss of mitochondrial membrane potential and concomitant caspase-3 cleavage and activation. The crambescidin 816 anti-tumor effect was fnally assayed in a zebrafish xenotransplantation model confirming its potent antitumor activity against colorectal carcinoma in vivo. Considering these results crambescidins could represent promising natural anticancer agents and therapeutic toolseng© The Author(s) 2016. Open Access. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (CC BY 3.0)http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/journal article10.18632/oncotarget.13068open access