Peptides, Peptidomimetics, and Polypeptides from Marine Sources: A Wealth of Natural Sources for Pharmaceutical Applications

Abstract

Nature provides a variety of peptides that are expressed in most living species. Evolutionary pressure and natural selection have created and optimized these peptides to bind to receptors with high affinity. Hence, natural resources provide an abundant chemical space to be explored in peptide-based drug discovery. Marine peptides can be extracted by simple solvent extraction techniques. The advancement of analytical techniques has made it possible to obtain pure peptides from natural resources. Extracted peptides have been evaluated as possible therapeutic agents for a wide range of diseases, including antibacterial, antifungal, antidiabetic and anticancer activity as well as cardiovascular and neurotoxin activity. Although marine resources provide thousands of possible peptides, only a few peptides derived from marine sources have reached the pharmaceutical market. This review focuses on some of the peptides derived from marine sources in the past ten years and gives a brief review of those that are currently in clinical trials or on the market.

Natural Peptides in Drug Discovery Targeting Acetylcholinesterase

“…Natural peptides were first discovered and isolated from marine organisms in the 1960s. After the discovery of neurotoxins, studies on marine peptides were done, vastly in the 1980s [ 62 ]. Approximately more than 2000 natural peptides have been isolated, representing 1/10 of the total bioactive compounds obtained from marine organisms [ 94 ].…”

“…Most natural neuropeptides were isolated using bioassays based on physiological impacts as well as light responses, spontaneous potentials responsible for the rhythmic contraction of the gut, motor patterns, or heartbeat frequency changes [ 56 , 57 , 58 ]. Neuropeptides noticed in a fraction form as biologically functional molecules, have been identified and isolated from various natural sources, and their activities were investigated in many medical and pharmaceutical purposes [ 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 ]. Here, we present a review which is mainly concerned with NPs targeting AChE in the context of different natural source matrices.…”

Research on the effect and mechanism of antimicrobial peptides HPRP‐A1/A2 work against Toxoplasma gondii infection

“…Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are amphipathic cationic short‐chain peptides with approximately 7‐100 amino acids . AMPs are present in many organisms, even ranging from microorganism to mammals and serve as a part of the innate immune system . Notably, AMPs can be potentially used as a clinical treatment because of their low drug resistance rate and broad‐spectrum antimicrobial activity .…”

“…16,17 AMPs are present in many organisms, even ranging from microorganism to mammals and serve as a part of the innate immune system. [18][19][20] Notably, AMPs can be potentially used as a clinical treatment because of their low drug resistance rate and broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity. [21][22][23] AMPs kill bacteria mainly through direct electrostatic interactions between positively charged peptides and negatively charged hydrophobic fatty acids and phospholipids of bacterial cell membranes.…”

Recent Progress of Marine Polypeptides as Anticancer Agents

“…The ocean has received much attention as a new useful source of bioactive compounds, and several kinds of drugs including marine peptides have been discovered and derived from marine natural products currently, with some drugs used clinically to treat cancer [1]. Recently, the success of discovery and development of these peptides from marine has provided a new prospect for pharmaceutical industry [2].…”