Mini-review: Marine natural products and their synthetic analogs as antifouling compounds: 2009–2014

Abstract

This review covers 214 marine natural compounds and 23 of their synthetic analogs, which were discovered and/or synthesized from mid-2009 to August 2014. The antifouling (AF) compounds reported have medium to high bioactivity (with a threshold of EC₅₀ < 15.0 mg ml⁻¹). Among these compounds, 82 natural compounds were identified as new structures. All the compounds are marine-derived, demonstrating that marine organisms are prolific and promising sources of natural products that may be developed as environmentally friendly antifoulants. However, this mini-review excludes more than 200 compounds that were also reported as AF compounds but with rather weak bioactivity during the same period. Also excluded are terrestrial-derived AF compounds reported during the last five years. A brief discussion on current challenges in AF compound research is also provided to reflect the authors’ own views in terms of future research directions.

Keywords:

• antifouling
• biofouling
• marine natural products
• antifouling compounds

Conflict of interest disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplemental material

The supplemental material for this paper is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08927014.2014.997226.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant [DY125-15-T-02] from the China Ocean Mineral Resources Research and Development Association, a grant [SIDSSE-201206] from the Sanya Institute of Deep Sea Science and Engineering, a GRC grant [GRF661611] from Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and award [SA-C0040/UK-C0016] from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.