Natural Products and Medicinal Plants Research

Marine: The Ultimate Source of Bioactives and Drug Metabolites

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Many marine natural products appear to arise from multi-functional enzymes that are also present in terrestrial systems, exhibiting a cross phylum activity with terrestrial biota. However, a large number of marine derived compounds also possess a substantial amount of functional groups, which were not previously described from terrestrial metabolites. They range from derivatives of amino acids and nucleosides to macrolides, porphyrins, terpenoids, aliphatic cyclic peroxides, and sterols. Microorganisms (amongst them mostly bacteria and fungi) have played an important role in providing new structures, like antibiotics for drug discovery and development. The terrestrial microbial populations are immensely diverse which is also reflected in the number of compounds and metabolites isolated from these microorganisms. Besides bacteria, marine fungi and deep-sea hydrothermal vent microorganisms are reported to produce bioactive compounds and metabolites.

Marine organisms have been found to be capable of providing solutions for major human diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, herpes and many others. With the rate of success and growth in this area, it is expected that the market for marine-derived pharmaceutical products will increase in the coming months rapidly and double by 2018.  Several of the marine organisms used for extracting drugs are deep sea bacteria, sponges, mollusks, fungi, and tunicates. Even with such strong R&D activities in marine organisms, it is believed that no more than 10% of organisms have been researched as potential candidates.