Bioactive natural products from Chinese marine flora and fauna

Abstract

In recent decades, the pharmaceutical application potential of marine natural products has attracted much interest from both natural product chemists and pharmacologists. Our group has long been engaged in the search for bioactive natural products from Chinese marine flora (such as mangroves and algae) and fauna (including sponges, soft corals, and mollusks), resulting in the isolation and characterization of numerous novel secondary metabolites spanning a wide range of structural classes and various biosynthetic origins. Of particular interest is the fact that many of these compounds show promising biological activities, including cytotoxic, antibacterial, and enzyme inhibitory effects. By describing representative studies, this review presents a comprehensive summary regarding the achievements and progress made by our group in the past decade. Several interesting examples are discussed in detail.

Bioactive pigments from microalgae Phormidium autumnale

“…They are organisms to evolve distinctive metabolic pathways, producing remarkable secondary metabolites, and present unique structures that differ from those of superior plants. Because the compounds isolated from microalgae are structurally and bioactive intriguing, research on microalgal bioproducts has been attracting the attention of chemists as a challenging research topic (Heydarizadeh et al, 2013;Zhou & Guo, 2012).…”

Natural Products of Marine Macroalgae from South Eastern Australia, with Emphasis on the Port Phillip Bay and Heads Regions of Victoria

“…Currently, there are 10 FDA-approved marine-derived pharmaceutical drugs, together with 30 potential candidates for application in a number of disease areas that are in different stages of clinical trials (Phase I, II and III) Figure 1 [5]. A number of reviews have also detailed the biologically active natural products that are sourced from marine organisms [6][7][8][9][10], highlighting marine organisms as an important resource for the production of new and unique compounds with potential medicinal value. Many of the compounds represented in Figure 1 have been isolated from sponges, ascidians and cyanobacteria.…”

A Novel Sarsolenane Diterpene as a PTP1B Inhibitor from Hainan Soft Coral Sarcophyton trocheliophorum Marenzeller

“…[2] However, marine diterpenes as PTP1B inhibitors are extremely rare. [2][3][4][5][6] In the course of our ongoing bioscreening for PTP1B inhibitors from Chinese marine organisms, [4][5][6][7] we collected samples of the soft coral Sarcophyton trocheliophorum, a widespread member of the South China Sea coral reef. The animals have been well recognized for the production of various secondary metabolites, such as diterpenes, sesquiterpenes, sterols, γ-butenolides, prostaglandins, etc.…”