Bioactive Peptides from Marine Organisms: A Short Overview

Abstract

Marine organisms are an immense source of new biologically active compounds. These compounds are unique because the aqueous environment requires a high demand of specific and potent bioactive molecules. Diverse peptides with a wide range of biological activities have been discovered, including antimicrobial, antitumoral, and antiviral activities and toxins amongst others. These proteins have been isolated from different phyla such as Porifera, Cnidaria, Nemertina, Crustacea, Mollusca, Echinodermata and Craniata. Purification techniques used to isolate these peptides include classical chromatographic methods such as gel filtration, ionic exchange and reverse-phase HPLC. Multiple in vivo and in vitro bioassays are coupled to the purification process to search for the biological activity of interest. The growing interest to study marine natural products results from the discovery of novel pharmacological tools including potent anticancer drugs now in clinical trials. This review presents examples of interesting peptides obtained from different marine organisms that have medical relevance. It also presents some of the common methods used to isolate and characterize them.

Conopeptide-Derived κ-Opioid Agonists (Conorphins): Potent, Selective, and Metabolic Stable Dynorphin A Mimetics with Antinociceptive Properties

“…The previously described lead optimization work was strongly focused on KOR affinity and peptide stability optimization. To ensure that while improving activity, selectivity for KOR was not lost, we investigated selected key milestone molecules (1,6,23,26,39,44,48), where strong structural changes were made, for their receptor selectivity. The selectivity profile of dynA (1− 17) and selected peptides, e.g., 1, 6, 23, 26, 39, 44, 48 at other opiate receptors (Table 3) indicated that improvements in KOR affinity paralleled improvements in KOR selectivity relative to MOR, DOR, and NOP.…”

The seaweed Prasiola crispa (Chlorophyta) neutralizes toxic effects of Bothrops jararacussu snake venom

“…Seaweeds are abundant and produce bioactive molecules derived from their primary (lipids, proteins, and carbohydrates) and secondary metabolism (alkaloids, terpenes, poliketides steroids) with a variety of pharmacological and ecological functions (Teixeira 2010), as antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal, antitumoral, anticoagulant, andothers (El-Gamal 2010). In addition, these molecules have a great diversity on their chemical structure compared with terrestrial organisms (Suleria et al 2015;Lazcano-Pérez et al 2012). This wide range of properties makes living marine organisms a promising source of molecules to develop drugs to treat diseases or pathologies.…”

Role of marine bioprospecting contracts in developing access and benefit sharing mechanism for marine traditional knowledge holders in the pharmaceutical industry

“…Thus, marine organisms offer a unique genetic pool that may possess the potential of treating several diseases including rare diseases or the ailments that are still considered incurable (Demunshi and Chugh, 2010;Lazcano-Pérez et al, 2012). This can be effectively deduced from the successfully FDA approved drugs (Table 1) such as Cytarabine (Ara-C), vidarabine (Ara-A), ziconotide, trabectedin, eribulin mesylate (Mayer et al, 2010;Martins et al, 2014).…”

“…The communities have been deprived of fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the commercialization of their knowledge. According to Global Industry Analysts, marine bioresources were expected to give rise to 'marine biotechnology' products worth over $3.75 bn by 2012, particularly functional ingredients for nutritionals, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals (Meredith, 2010) and while according to another market report by TechNavio, the marine biotech market is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 3.82% over the period 2012-2016(Global Marine Biotech Market, 2012-2016.…”