Peptides from Marine-Derived Fungi: Chemistry and Biological Activities

Abstract

Marine natural products are well-recognized as potential resources to fill the pipeline of drug leads to enter the pharmaceutical industry. In this circumstance, marine-derived fungi are one of the unique sources of bioactive secondary metabolites due to their capacity to produce diverse polyketides and peptides with unique structures and diverse biological activities. The present review covers the peptides from marine-derived fungi reported from the literature published from January 1991 to June 2023, and various scientific databases, including Elsevier, ACS publications, Taylor and Francis, Wiley Online Library, MDPI, Springer, Thieme, Bentham, ProQuest, and the Marine Pharmacology website, are used for a literature search. This review focuses on chemical characteristics, sources, and biological and pharmacological activities of 366 marine fungal peptides belonging to various classes, such as linear, cyclic, and depsipeptides. Among 30 marine-derived fungal genera, isolated from marine macro-organisms such as marine algae, sponges, coral, and mangrove plants, as well as deep sea sediments, species of Aspergillus were found to produce the highest number of peptides (174 peptides), followed by Penicillium (23 peptides), Acremonium (22 peptides), Eurotium (18 peptides), Trichoderma (18 peptides), Simplicillium (17 peptides), and Beauveria (12 peptides). The cytotoxic activity against a broad spectrum of human cancer cell lines was the predominant biological activity of the reported marine peptides (32%), whereas antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, and various enzyme inhibition activities ranged from 7% to 20%. In the first part of this review, the chemistry of marine peptides is discussed and followed by their biological activity.

Zilucoplan: A Newly Approved Macrocyclic Peptide for Treatment of Anti-Acetylcholine Receptor Positive Myasthenia Gravis

“…Many peptides are obtained from natural sources [36], both terrestrial [37] and marine [38,39]. Chemical synthesis is also a remarkable source of peptides [40,41] and, in addition to classical solid-phase and solution-phase techniques [42], the introduction of sustainable and innovative processes was carried out for synthesis and purification methodologies [43,44].…”

Therapeutic Potential of Marine-Derived Cyclic Peptides as Antiparasitic Agents

“…Ziconotide (Prialt ® , analgesic drug) was the first Food and Drug Administration (FDA)approved marine-derived peptide, in 2004 [87,88]. Other examples include brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris ® ), plitidepsin (Aplidin ® ), polatuzumab vedotin (Polivy ® ), tisotumab vedotin (TIVDAK TM ), and disitamab vedotin (Aidixi ® ), all anticancer drugs [89]. We highlight that ziconotide and plitidepsin are both cyclic peptides.…”

Study of marine microorganism metabolites: new resources for bioactive natural products

“…It is frequently forgotten that marine mushrooms may adapt to a variety of marine settings, including saltmarshes, hydrothermal zones, and the deep sea ( Gladfelter et al, 2019 ). Nearly all maritime habitats have been shown to include fungi, including sediments ( Barone, 2022 ), the saltwater column ( Xu et al, 2018 ), and combinations with other marine organisms such as sponges, corals, and algae ( Zhao et al, 2019 ; de Sá et al, 2022 ; Giddings and Newman, 2022 ; Hafez Ghoran et al, 2023 ). Both deep and surface seas include marine fungi, which are a reliable source of many healthy substances like antimicrobials, antioxidants, and anticancer chemicals ( Deshmukh et al, 2018 ).…”

“…One of the new compounds, tenellone H (15), has exhibited cytotoxic activity against HepG-2 and A549 cell lines with IC 50 values of 16.0 and 17.6 μM, respectively. Another marine-derived fungus, Aspergillus niger , produced malformin C (16), which showed strong anti-HIV-1 activity ( Hafez Ghoran et al, 2023 ). Additionally, stachyflin (17), a terpenoid isolated from cultures of marine-derived Stachybotrys, demonstrated modest activity against the influenza A virus (H1N1) with an IC 50 of 3,910 − 3 μM ( Zhao et al, 2019 ).…”