Cytotoxic Alkaloids Derived from Marine Sponges: A Comprehensive Review

Abstract

Marine sponges (porifera) have proved to be a prolific source of unique bioactive secondary metabolites, among which the alkaloids occupy a special place in terms of unprecedented structures and outstanding biological activities. Identification of active cytotoxic alkaloids extracted from marine animals, particularly sponges, is an important strive, due to lack of knowledge on traditional experiential and ethnopharmacology investigations. In this report, a comprehensive survey of demospongian bioactive alkaloids in the range 1987–2020 had been performed with a special emphasis on the potent cytotoxic activity. Different resources and databases had been investigated, including Scifinder (database for the chemical literature) CAS (Chemical Abstract Service) search, web of science, Marin Lit (marine natural products research) database. More than 230 representatives of different classes of alkaloids had been reviewed and classified, different genera belonging to the phylum porifera had been shown to be a prolific source of alkaloidal molecules, including Agelas sp., Suberea sp., Mycale sp., Haliclona sp., Epipolasis sp., Monanchora sp., Crambe sp., Reniera sp., and Xestospongia sp., among others. The sufficient production of alkaloids derived from sponges is a prosperous approach that requires more attention in future studies to consider the constraints regarding the supply of drugs, attained from marine organisms.

Volatile Organic Compounds of Marine Sponge Petrosia ficiformis from the Adriatic Sea

“…Pyridine derivatives are often part of biomolecules in marine sponges such as alkaloids. [23] Among terpenes, p-cymene, eucalyptol, fenchone, linalool, β-thujone and β-citral were detected in a low percentage. Other compounds such as norisoprenoids, organohalogen compounds and fatty acid derivatives were detected with minor abundance in the total headspace composition.…”

Biodiversity of the Indonesian marine sponge genus Aaptos with molecular networking approach

“…Sponge genus Aaptos is found in a wide range of ecosystems, including the South China Sea, Japanese, Indonesian, and Caribbean waters [8][9][10][11]. The first discovery was conducted by Nakamura and co-workers from an Okinawan sponge Aaptos aaptos which contain aaptamine, an alkaloidal molecule, in 1981 [12].…”

Marine Alkaloids: Compounds with In Vivo Activity and Chemical Synthesis

“…A growing number of studies have been revealing the rich diversity of compounds found in marine organisms that can be explored as new drugs for human diseases. Among them, alkaloids stand out as one of the most diverse and largely studied groups of compounds [ 5 , 6 ]. This relatively young field of research is growing fast, and many studies have focused on the accurate identification of chemical structures and evaluation of biological potential in vitro.…”

“…For instance, a recent review compiled around 800 indole alkaloids isolated from algae, microorganisms, sponges, and invertebrate sources [ 5 ]. Moreover, several studies have been carried out to screen and characterize the biological activity of marine alkaloids in vitro against cancer [ 6 ], inflammatory diseases [ 7 ], and parasites [ 8 ], for instance.…”