Research hotspots and trends in discovery of anticancer agents from algae: A 20-year bibliometric and visualized analysis based on Web of Science and CiteSpace

Abstract

In recent years, more and more metabolites with anticancer activity in algae have been isolated and identified, which are promising candidates for cancer therapy. In this work, a comprehensive bibliometric analysis was performed for better understanding the research hotspots and trends in discovery of anticancer agents from algae during 2003 to 2022. After retrieval from Web of Science core collection database, a total of 2804 most relevant publications were obtained, which were further systematically analyzed by using CiteSpace. Results showed that this field has attracted more attentions from researchers in the world, especially since 2019. China was the leading contributor to this field, but its collaborative partners were significantly less than that of USA, suggesting that Chinese researchers should conduct more cooperative studies with other investigators from other countries. Concerning the contributing journals, Algal Research was one of the top 10 productive journals in this field in terms of publication outcomes. Furthermore, current research hotspots and recently emerging sub-fields were discovered by using citation burst analysis, it showed that novel drug delivery systems, structure-activity relationships, and mechanisms of anticancer metabolites in vivo were the emerging topics in the future. This work would help policy makers, developers and researchers in discovery of anticancer agents from algae by providing them a bibliometric perspective on research hotspots and trends of this field, and spurring them to think about the field through various aspects.