Marine natural product drug discovery: Leads for treatment of inflammation, cancer, infections, and neurological disorders

Abstract

Natural products, secondary metabolites, isolated from plants, animals and microbes are important sources for bioactive molecules that in many cases have been developed into treatments for diseases. This review will focus on describing the potential for finding new treatments from marine natural products for inflammation, cancer, infections, and neurological disorders. Historically terrestrial natural products have been studied to a greater extent and such classic drugs as aspirin, vincristine and many of the antibiotics are derived from terrestrial natural products. The need for new therapeutics in the four areas mentioned is dire. Within the last 30 years marine natural products, with their unique structures and high level of halogenation, have shown many promising activities against the inflammatory response, cancer, infections and neurological disorders. The review will outline examples of such compounds and activities.

Keywords::

• Marine natural products
• inflammation
• cancer
• infections

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank William Gerwick for reading of the manuscript and giving many constructive comments.

Declaration of interest: We would also like to acknowledge the International Cooperative Biodiversity grant (U01 TW006634) and the Ledger Benbough Foundation and NIH/NIGMS Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award (IRACDA) fellowship for F.V. for funding. The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.