Doxorubicin antitumor natural product

There are now more than forty drugs approved for the treatment of human cancer in the United States. Considering the thousands of compounds that have been tested as candidate antitumor agents, this is a highly select group. Among them are two drugs that require a metal ion as part of their structures. One is the simple metal complex cis-diamminedichloroplatinum(ii). The other, bleomycin, is a natural product that must form an iron complex to display cytotoxicity. In addition, two anthracycline natural products, doxorubicin or adriamycin, and daunomycin, may also function as iron complexes or utilize cellular iron in an indirect way in their mechanisms of action. 

---