The current antiviral drug armamentarium comprises nearly 40 compounds that have been officially approved for clinical use. Most of these drugs date back the last five years, and at least half of them are used for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection.1) Taking this situation into account, the importance of developing new antiviral agents becomes clear in order to increase the number of these available drugs.The Herpes Simplex Viruses (HSV) are responsible for a broad range of human infectious diseases. Moreover, HSV infections were reported to be recognized as a risk factor for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection.2) However, the prolonged therapies with the available antiherpes drugs have resulted in some undesirable effects 3) and also induced the emergence of drug-resistant strains.
4)The adenovirus serotype 5 (AdV-5) is very stable in the environment during long periods of time, and it is associated with respiratory infections with no specific treatment.
5)The rotaviruses are responsible for severe gastroenteritis in both humans and animals. The infection of children and/or immunocompromised patients can lead to death by diarrhea, and the treatment is only symptomatic. 6) Therefore, it is necessary to develop new antiviral agents against these viruses.Natural products derived from terrestrial and marine kingdoms represent an inexhaustible source of compounds with promising antiviral action, not only for the great number of species found in these kingdom with unexplored pharmacological activities, but mainly for the variety of synthesized metabolites.7-10) The marine environment possesses an important biodiversity represented by 34 of the 36 phyla of all globe, with ca. of 300000 known species of plants and animals, such as sponges, tunicates, bryozoans, shellfish, bacteria, fishes, seaweeds, just to name a few. Ecological pressures, such as competition for space, predation, symbiosis and tide variations, throughout thousand of years originated the biosynthesis of complex and different secondary metabolites by these organisms, which in turn allowed their adaptation to a competitive and hostile environment. [11][12][13] In relation to the infectious diseases, the exploration of the marine environment represents a promising strategy in the search for active compounds, whereas there is a need for new medicines, due to the appearance of resistance to the available treatments in many microorganisms, specifically concerning antifungal, antiprotozoal, antibacterial and antiviral activities. Viruses have remained resistant to treatment or prophylaxis longer than any other infectious organisms.14)The search for new antiviral agents from marine sources has yielded several promising therapeutic leads. The literature shows a great number of reports about different pharmacological activities of marine sponges. Many papers showed the results of the screening of marine organisms for antiviral activity, and a wide range of active compounds have been This paper describes the in vitro antiviral...
