Chemistry and Biological Activities of the Marine Sponges of the Genera Mycale (Arenochalina), Biemna and Clathria

Abstract

Over the past seven decades, particularly since the discovery of the first marine-derived nucleosides, spongothymidine and spongouridine, from the Caribbean sponge Cryptotethya crypta in the early 1950s, marine natural products have emerged as unique, renewable and yet under-investigated pools for discovery of new drug leads with distinct structural features, and myriad interesting biological activities. Marine sponges are the most primitive and simplest multicellular animals, with approximately 8900 known described species, although more than 15,000 species are thought to exist worldwide today. These marine organisms potentially represent the richest pipeline for novel drug leads. Mycale (Arenochalina) and Clathria are recognized marine sponge genera belonging to the order Poecilosclerida, whereas Biemna was more recently reclassified, based on molecular genetics, as a new order Biemnida. Together, these sponge genera contribute to the production of physiologically active molecular entities with diverse structural features and a wide range of medicinal and therapeutic potentialities. In this review, we provide a comprehensive insight and up-to-date literature survey over the period of 1976–2018, focusing on the chemistry of the isolated compounds from members of these three genera, as well as their biological and pharmacological activities, whenever available.

Ten-Year Research Update Review: Antiviral Activities from Marine Organisms

“…Since the first sponge-derived antiviral drug, Ara-A (Figure 4), was discovered as an anti-HSV-1, KOS strain agent [198,199], a great interest was addressed to marine sponges for exploring new pharmaceuticals [147,200]. Palem et al [158] evaluated an anti HSV-1 activity in the sponge-derived alkaloid, Manzamine A, firstly isolated by Sakai et al [201] as an antitumor compound.…”

Chemistry, Chemotaxonomy and Biological Activity of the Latrunculid Sponges (Order Poecilosclerida, Family Latrunculiidae)

“…These metabolites served as the leading structures for the synthesis of the first marine-derived anticancer agent cytarabine (Ara-C TM ) and antiviral agent vidarabine (Ara-A TM ). Marine sponges are among the most primitive multicellular animals that have existed for 700–800 million years, with approximately 8900 described species distributed worldwide today [ 6 ]. Being sessile, sponges lack behavioral defenses and have evolved numerous structural and chemical defense strategies to defend themselves, e.g., the accumulation of toxic and/or antifeedant molecules [ 7 ].…”

Chemical Diversity and Biological Activities of Marine Sponges of the Genus Suberea: A Systematic Review

“…As a part of our ongoing research on biologically active marine natural products [ 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 ], this review comprehensively covers chemistry and biological activities of the isolated secondary metabolites from the marine sponges of the genus Suberea, reported over the period of 1998–2018, with a special attention to the halogenated compounds and their biosynthetic pathways.…”