Lichen Depsides and Tridepsides: Progress in Pharmacological Approaches

Abstract

Depsides and tridepsides are secondary metabolites found in lichens. In the last 10 years, there has been a growing interest in the pharmacological activity of these compounds. This review aims to discuss the research findings related to the biological effects and mechanisms of action of lichen depsides and tridepsides. The most studied compound is atranorin, followed by gyrophoric acid, diffractaic acid, and lecanoric acid. Antioxidant, cytotoxic, and antimicrobial activities are among the most investigated activities, mainly in in vitro studies, with occasional in silico and in vivo studies. Clinical trials have not been conducted using depsides and tridepsides. Therefore, future research should focus on conducting more in vivo work and clinical trials, as well as on evaluating the other activities. Moreover, despite the significant increase in research work on the pharmacology of depsides and tridepsides, there are many of these compounds which have yet to be investigated (e.g., hiascic acid, lassalic acid, ovoic acid, crustinic acid, and hypothamnolic acid).

The Power of Lichens: New Eco‐Friendly Corrosion Inhibitors from Nature

“…[30] As for plants, lichens are rich in several metabolites from which they produce more than 1000 compounds. [10,48] In Figure 6. Evolution of corrosion rates as a function of time with and without the inhibitor in an acidic medium HCl (1 M) addition, they are producers of original compounds and more specifically of bioactive secondary metabolites.…”

“…As for plants, lichens are rich in several metabolites from which they produce more than 1000 compounds [10,48] . In addition, they are producers of original compounds and more specifically of bioactive secondary metabolites.…”

“…The inhibition performance (IE%) didn't indicate any significant difference between the three lichens (p > 0.05). Table 4 indicates an evolution of the mass loss and the corrosion inhibition without inhibitor concerning time (1,24,48,72, and 168 h) (Figure 6). The analysis of the data shows that the rate of corrosion reduced with time, thus indicating that the extracts have excellent corrosion-inhibiting properties for steel in 1 M HCl, which is why the adsorption of the extract increases on the steel surface and prevents the dissolution of the steel.…”

Antioxidant and antidiabetic activity and phytoconstituents of lichen extracts with temperate and polar distribution

“…The large number of compounds reported in lichens and classified in the groups of dibenzofurans, depsides, depsidones, depsones, lactones, quinones, and pulvinic acid derivatives are highly complex due to their synthesis through various biosynthetic pathways and their potential medicinal use as antibiotics, antitumor/antimutagenic, antiviral, enzyme inhibitor, and antioxidants (Bostie and Grube, 2005;Ureña-Vacas et al, 2022a;Ureña-Vacas et al, 2023). The lichen genera that group most species with reported biological activities are Acarospora, Alectoria, Bryoria, Bulbothrix, Candelariella, Cetraria, Cetrelia, Cladia, Cladonia, Dirinaria, Evernia, Heterodermia, Hypogymnia, Lethariella, Lobaria, Melanelixia, Myelochroa, Parmelia, Parmotrema, Peltigera, Platismatia, Pleurosticta, Pseudevernia, Pseudoparmelia, Ramalina, Stereocaulon, Sticta, Teloschistes, Thamnolia, Umbilicaria, Usnea, Vulpicida, and Xanthoparmelia; on the other hand, the isolated compounds with more biological evidence are atranorin, barbatic, diffractaic, evernic, fumarprotocetraric, gyrophoric, lobaric, orsellinic, physodic, protocetraric, usnic, and vulpinic acids (Adenubi et al, 2022).…”

A New Rare Halogenated Depside from Lichen and Study of its Anti‐Proliferative Activity

“…[5,6] In literature, it was found that some of lichen also biosynthesized chloroatranorin along with atranorin, depsides and tridepsides. [47] It has also been credited as anti-bacterial, [48] and anti-biotic. [49][50][51] Some of secondary metabolites present in lichens act as very good preventive agent to protect neurological disorders [36][37][38][39][40] such as Alzheimer's disease by performing cholinesterase activity.…”