Special Issue "A Theme Issue Honoring Professor Peter Proksch's 70th Birthday: Bioactive Compounds from the Ocean"

A special issue of Marine Drugs (ISSN 1660-3397). This special issue belongs to the section "Structural Studies on Marine Natural Products".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 6 December 2023 | Viewed by 7670

Special Issue Editors

Key Laboratory of Experimental Marine Biology, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanhai Road 7, Qingdao 266071, China
Interests: natural product chemistry; bioactive compounds; drug discovery; structure determination
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Hainan Institute for Tropical Agricultural Resources, CATAS, Haikou 571101, China
Interests: natural product chemistry; bioactive compounds; drug discovery; structure determination

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This commemorative Special Issue on bioactive compounds from the ocean is in honor of Prof. Dr. Peter Proksch for his 70th birthday. Prof. Dr. Proksch is an internationally recognized scientist in research on both terrestrial and marine natural products.

Marine organisms live in a complex chemical buffer system of seawater with higher pressure and salinity, lower temperature, and limited dissolved oxygen and sunlight. To cope with the special environmental stresses, marine organisms have evolved specific genetic capabilities to produce novel bioactive products or so-called small-molecule secondary metabolites, which play important roles in adaptation to environments, species communication, and biotechnological as well as pharmaceutical applications.

Prof. Dr. Proksch worked with terrestrial plants in the early stage of his career and started to work on marine natural products some thirty years ago. He once said, “When I started to work on marine natural products I was attracted to this fascinating field of science by the exotic environment, the colourful shapes of (mostly) marine invertebrates and their complex ecological interactions”. In parallel to marine macroorganisms, he soon embarked on studying natural products from marine-derived microorganisms, discovering a huge amount of biodiversity and highly unusual and complex microbial natural products.

In honor and recognition of Prof. Dr. Proksch’s outstanding contributions to research on marine natural products, this Special Issue welcomes the submission of original research articles, reviews, and communications in this research field. The topics of this Special Issue include, but are not limited to:

  • Isolation, structure elucidation, and bioactivity of new molecules from marine organisms.
  • Characterization of proteins, enzymes, and saccharides from marine organisms.
  • Biosynthesis of bioactive compounds from marine organisms.
  • Design, synthesis, modification, and structure–activity relationship of bioactive compounds from marine organisms.
  • Pharmacological mechanisms of bioactive compounds from marine organisms.

Prof. Dr. Bin-Gui Wang
Prof. Dr. Haofu Dai
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Marine Drugs is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • marine natural products
  • bioactive compounds
  • chemical structure
  • biosynthetic pathway
  • pharmacological mechanism

Published Papers (9 papers)

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Research

Article
Pentaketides and 5-p-Hydroxyphenyl-2-pyridone Derivative from the Culture Extract of a Marine Sponge-Associated Fungus Hamigera avellanea KUFA0732
Mar. Drugs 2023, 21(6), 344; https://doi.org/10.3390/md21060344 - 02 Jun 2023
Viewed by 452
Abstract
Five undescribed pentaketide derivatives, (R)-6,8-dihydroxy-4,5-dimethyl-3-methylidene-3,4-dihydro-1H-2-benzopyran-1-one (1), [(3S,4R)-3,8-dihydroxy-6-methoxy-4,5-dimethyl-1-oxo-3,4-dihydro-1H-isochromen-3-yl]methyl acetate (2), (R)-5, 7-dimethoxy-3-((S)-(1-hydroxyethyl)-3,4-dimethylisobenzofuran-1(3H)-one (4b), (S)-7-hydroxy-3-((S)-1-hydroxyethyl)-5-methoxy-3,4-dimethylisobenzofuran 1(3H)-one ( [...] Read more.
Five undescribed pentaketide derivatives, (R)-6,8-dihydroxy-4,5-dimethyl-3-methylidene-3,4-dihydro-1H-2-benzopyran-1-one (1), [(3S,4R)-3,8-dihydroxy-6-methoxy-4,5-dimethyl-1-oxo-3,4-dihydro-1H-isochromen-3-yl]methyl acetate (2), (R)-5, 7-dimethoxy-3-((S)-(1-hydroxyethyl)-3,4-dimethylisobenzofuran-1(3H)-one (4b), (S)-7-hydroxy-3-((S)-1-hydroxyethyl)-5-methoxy-3,4-dimethylisobenzofuran 1(3H)-one (5), and a p-hydroxyphenyl-2-pyridone derivative, avellaneanone (6), were isolated together with the previously reported (R)-3-acetyl-7-hydroxy-5-methoxy-3,4-dimethylisobenzofuran-1(3H)-one (3), (R)-7-hydroxy-3-((S)-1-hydroxyethyl)-5-methoxy-3,4-dimethylisobenzofuran-1(3H)-one (4a) and isosclerone (7), from the ethyl acetate extract of a culture of a marine sponge-derived fungus, Hamigera avellanea KUFA0732. The structures of the undescribed compounds were elucidated using 1D and 2D NMR, as well as high-resolution mass spectral analyses. The absolute configurations of the stereogenic carbons in 1, 4b, 5, and 6 were established by X-ray crystallographic analysis. The absolute configurations of C-3 and C-4 in 2 were determined by ROESY correlations and on the basis of their common biosynthetic origin with 1. The crude fungal extract and the isolated compounds 1, 3, 4b, 5, 6, and 7 were assayed for their growth inhibitory activity against various plant pathogenic fungi viz. Alternaria brassicicola, Bipolaris oryzae, Colletotrichum capsici, C. gloeosporiodes, Curvularia oryzae, Fusarium semitectum, Lasiodiplodia theobromae, Phytophthora palmivora, Pyricularia oryzae, Rhizoctonia oryzae and Sclerotium rolfsii. Full article
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Article
Bioactive Polyketides and Benzene Derivatives from Two Mangrove Sediment-Derived Fungi in the Beibu Gulf
Mar. Drugs 2023, 21(6), 327; https://doi.org/10.3390/md21060327 - 26 May 2023
Viewed by 372
Abstract
To discover bioactive natural products from mangrove sediment-derived microbes, a chemical investigation of the two Beibu Gulf-derived fungi strains, Talaromyces sp. SCSIO 41050 and Penicillium sp. SCSIO 41411, led to the isolation of 23 natural products. Five of them were identified as new [...] Read more.
To discover bioactive natural products from mangrove sediment-derived microbes, a chemical investigation of the two Beibu Gulf-derived fungi strains, Talaromyces sp. SCSIO 41050 and Penicillium sp. SCSIO 41411, led to the isolation of 23 natural products. Five of them were identified as new ones, including two polyketide derivatives with unusual acid anhydride moieties named cordyanhydride A ethyl ester (1) and maleicanhydridane (4), and three hydroxyphenylacetic acid derivatives named stachylines H–J (1012). Their structures were determined by detailed nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and mass spectroscopic (MS) analyses, while the absolute configurations were established by theoretical electronic circular dichroism (ECD) calculation. A variety of bioactive screens revealed three polyketide derivatives (13) with obvious antifungal activities, and 4 displayed moderate cytotoxicity against cell lines A549 and WPMY-1. Compounds 1 and 6 at 10 μM exhibited obvious inhibition against phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4) with inhibitory ratios of 49.7% and 39.6%, respectively, while 5, 10, and 11 showed the potential of inhibiting acetylcholinesterase (AChE) by an enzyme activity test, as well as in silico docking analysis. Full article
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Article
Sclerotioloids A–C: Three New Alkaloids from the Marine-Derived Fungus Aspergillus sclerotiorum ST0501
Mar. Drugs 2023, 21(4), 219; https://doi.org/10.3390/md21040219 - 29 Mar 2023
Viewed by 638
Abstract
Alkaloids, as one of the largest classes of natural products with diverse structures, are an important source of innovative medicines. Filamentous fungi, especially those derived from the marine environment, are one of the major producers of alkaloids. In this study, three new alkaloids, [...] Read more.
Alkaloids, as one of the largest classes of natural products with diverse structures, are an important source of innovative medicines. Filamentous fungi, especially those derived from the marine environment, are one of the major producers of alkaloids. In this study, three new alkaloids, sclerotioloids A–C (13), along with six known analogs (49), were obtained under the guidance of the MS/MS-based molecular networking from the marine-derived fungus, Aspergillus sclerotiorum ST0501, collected from the South China Sea. Their chemical structures were elucidated by comprehensive analysis of the spectroscopic data, including 1D and 2D NMR and HRESIMS. Additionally, the configuration of compound 2 was unambiguously determined by X-ray single crystal diffraction, and that of compound 3 was determined by the TDDFT-ECD approach. Sclerotioloid A (1) represents the first example of 2,5-diketopiperazine alkaloid with a rare terminal alkyne. Sclerotioloid B (2) showed the inhibition of NO production induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS), with an inhibition rate of 28.92% higher than that of dexamethasone (25.87%). These results expanded the library of fungal-derived alkaloids and further prove the potential of marine fungi in the generation of alkaloids with new scaffolds. Full article
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Article
Antibacterial Indole Diketopiperazine Alkaloids from the Deep-Sea Cold Seep-Derived Fungus Aspergillus chevalieri
Mar. Drugs 2023, 21(3), 195; https://doi.org/10.3390/md21030195 - 22 Mar 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 779
Abstract
A large body of fungal secondary metabolites has been discovered to exhibit potent antibacterial activities with distinctive mechanisms and has the potential to be an untapped resource for drug discovery. Here, we describe the isolation and characterization of five new antibacterial indole diketopiperazine [...] Read more.
A large body of fungal secondary metabolites has been discovered to exhibit potent antibacterial activities with distinctive mechanisms and has the potential to be an untapped resource for drug discovery. Here, we describe the isolation and characterization of five new antibacterial indole diketopiperazine alkaloids, namely 24,25-dihydroxyvariecolorin G (1), 25-hydroxyrubrumazine B (2), 22-chloro-25-hydroxyrubrumazine B (3), 25-hydroxyvariecolorin F (4), and 27-epi-aspechinulin D (5), along with the known analogue neoechinulin B (6) from a fungal strain of deep-sea cold seep-derived Aspergillus chevalieri. Among these compounds, 3 and 4 represented a class of infrequently occurring fungal chlorinated natural products. Compounds 16 showed inhibitory activities against several pathogenic bacteria with MIC values ranging from 4 to 32 μg/mL. It was revealed that compound 6 could induce structural damage to the Aeromonas hydrophila cells based on the observation by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), which led to the bacteriolysis and death of A. hydrophila, suggesting that neoechinulin B (6) might be a potential alternative to novel antibiotics development. Full article
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Communication
Potential α-Glucosidase Inhibitors from the Deep-Sea Sediment-Derived Fungus Aspergillus insulicola
Mar. Drugs 2023, 21(3), 157; https://doi.org/10.3390/md21030157 - 26 Feb 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 896
Abstract
Three new phenolic compounds, epicocconigrones C–D (12) and flavimycin C (3), together with six known phenolic compounds: epicocconigrone A (4); 2-(10-formyl-11,13-dihydroxy-12-methoxy-14-methyl)-6,7-dihydroxy-5-methyl-4-benzofurancarboxaldehyde (5); epicoccolide B (6); eleganketal A (7); 1,3-dihydro-5-methoxy-7-methylisobenzofuran [...] Read more.
Three new phenolic compounds, epicocconigrones C–D (12) and flavimycin C (3), together with six known phenolic compounds: epicocconigrone A (4); 2-(10-formyl-11,13-dihydroxy-12-methoxy-14-methyl)-6,7-dihydroxy-5-methyl-4-benzofurancarboxaldehyde (5); epicoccolide B (6); eleganketal A (7); 1,3-dihydro-5-methoxy-7-methylisobenzofuran (8); and 2,3,4-trihydroxy-6-(hydroxymethyl)-5-methylbenzyl-alcohol (9), were isolated from fermentation cultures of a deep-sea sediment-derived fungus, Aspergillus insulicola. Their planar structures were elucidated based on the 1D and 2D NMR spectra and HRESIMS data. The absolute configurations of compounds 13 were determined by ECD calculations. Compound 3 represented a rare fully symmetrical isobenzofuran dimer. All compounds were evaluated for their α-glucosidase inhibitory activity, and compounds 1, 47, and 9 exhibited more potent α-glucosidase inhibitory effect with IC50 values ranging from 17.04 to 292.47 μM than positive control acarbose with IC50 value of 822.97 μM, indicating that these phenolic compounds could be promising lead compounds of new hypoglycemic drugs. Full article
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Article
New Isocoumarins from the Marine Fungus Phaeosphaeriopsis sp. WP-26
Mar. Drugs 2023, 21(3), 150; https://doi.org/10.3390/md21030150 - 25 Feb 2023
Viewed by 877
Abstract
Five new isocoumarins, phaeosphaerins A–E (15), were isolated from the fermentation broth of the marine fungus Phaeosphaeriopsis sp. WP-26, along with one known isocoumarin, 6,8-dihydroxy-7-methoxy-3-methylisocoumarin (6), and two known pimarane-type diterpenes, diaportheins A (7) and [...] Read more.
Five new isocoumarins, phaeosphaerins A–E (15), were isolated from the fermentation broth of the marine fungus Phaeosphaeriopsis sp. WP-26, along with one known isocoumarin, 6,8-dihydroxy-7-methoxy-3-methylisocoumarin (6), and two known pimarane-type diterpenes, diaportheins A (7) and B (8). Their structures were elucidated via NMR experiments, X-ray diffraction analysis, and comparison of the experimental and computed ECD curves. Compounds 17 displayed weak neuroprotective effects against H2O2-induced damage in SH-SY5Y cells. Moreover, compound 8 showed cytotoxicity against BEL-7402, SGC-7901, K562, A549, and HL-60 cell lines. Full article
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Article
New Azaphilones from the Marine-Derived Fungus Penicillium sclerotiorum E23Y-1A with Their Anti-Inflammatory and Antitumor Activities
Mar. Drugs 2023, 21(2), 75; https://doi.org/10.3390/md21020075 - 22 Jan 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 937
Abstract
Nine new azaphilones, including penicilazaphilones I–N (1, 2 and 69), epi-geumsanol D (3) and penidioxolanes C (4) and D (5) were isolated from the culture of the marine-derived fungus Penicillium sclerotiorum [...] Read more.
Nine new azaphilones, including penicilazaphilones I–N (1, 2 and 69), epi-geumsanol D (3) and penidioxolanes C (4) and D (5) were isolated from the culture of the marine-derived fungus Penicillium sclerotiorum E23Y-1A. The structures of the isolates were deduced from extensive spectroscopic data (1D and 2D NMR), high-resolution electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HRESIMS), and electronic circular dichroism (ECD) calculations. All the azaphilones from P. sclerotiorum E23Y-1A were tested for their anti-inflammatory and antitumor activities. Penicilazaphilone N (9) showed moderate anti-inflammatory activity with an IC50 value of 22.63 ± 2.95 μM, whereas penidioxolane C (4) exhibited moderate inhibition against human myeloid leukemia cells (K562), human liver cancer cells (BEL-7402), human gastric cancer cells (SGC-7901), human non-small cell lung cancer cells (A549), and human hela cervical cancer cells, with IC50 values of 23.94 ± 0.11, 60.66 ± 0.13, 46.17 ± 0.17, 60.16 ± 0.26, and 59.30 ± 0.60 μM, respectively. Full article
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Article
Structurally Diverse Diterpenes from the South China Sea Soft Coral Sarcophyton trocheliophorum
Mar. Drugs 2023, 21(2), 69; https://doi.org/10.3390/md21020069 - 20 Jan 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1079
Abstract
The present investigation of the South China Sea soft coral Sarcophyton trocheliophorum resulted in the discovery of six new polyoxygenated diterpenes, namely sartrocheliols A–E (1, 3, 58) along with four known ones, 2, 4, 9 [...] Read more.
The present investigation of the South China Sea soft coral Sarcophyton trocheliophorum resulted in the discovery of six new polyoxygenated diterpenes, namely sartrocheliols A–E (1, 3, 58) along with four known ones, 2, 4, 9, and 10. Based on extensive spectroscopic data analysis, sartrocheliol A (1) was identified as an uncommon capnosane diterpene, while sartrocheliols B–E (3, 58) were established as cembrane diterpenes. They displayed diverse structural features not only at the distinctly different carbon frameworks but also at the various types of heterocycles, including the epoxide, γ-lactone, furan, and pyran rings. Moreover, their absolute configurations were determined by a combination of quantum mechanical-nuclear magnetic resonance (QM-NMR) approach, modified Mosher’s method, and X-ray diffraction analysis. In the anti-tumor bioassay, compound 4 exhibited moderate cytotoxic activities against A549, H1975, MDA-MB-231, and H1299 cells with the IC50 values ranging from 26.3 to 47.9 μM. Full article
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Article
Eremophilane-Type Sesquiterpenes from a Marine-Derived Fungus Penicillium Copticola with Antitumor and Neuroprotective Activities
Mar. Drugs 2022, 20(11), 712; https://doi.org/10.3390/md20110712 - 13 Nov 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1025
Abstract
Chemical examination of a marine sponge-associated Penicillium copticola fungus resulted in the isolation of ten undescribed eremophilanes, namely copteremophilanes A–J (110), along with two new glycosides, 5-glycopenostatin F (11) and 5-glucopenostatin I (12). Their structures [...] Read more.
Chemical examination of a marine sponge-associated Penicillium copticola fungus resulted in the isolation of ten undescribed eremophilanes, namely copteremophilanes A–J (110), along with two new glycosides, 5-glycopenostatin F (11) and 5-glucopenostatin I (12). Their structures were determined by extensive spectroscopic data, in association with ECD data and chemical conversions for configurational assignments. Analogs 1, 2, and 10 represent a group of uncommon skeletons of eremophilanes with an aromatic ring and a methyl migration from C-5 to C-9, and analogs 11 and 12 are characteristic of a PKS scaffold bearing a glucose unit. The incorporation of a chlorinated phenylacetic unit in 39 is rarely found in nature. Analog 7 showed neuroprotective effect, whereas 8 exhibited selective inhibition against human non-small cell lung cancer cells (A549). This study enriched the chemical diversity of eremophilanes and extended their bioactivities to neuroprotection. Full article
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