Drugs and Drug Candidates from Marine Sources: An Assessment of the Current “State of Play”

Abstract

The potential of the marine environment to produce candidate compounds (structures) as leads to, or even direct drugs from, has been actively discussed for the last 50 or so years. Over this time frame, several compounds have led to drugs, usually in the area of cancer (due to funding sources). This review is designed to show where there have been successes, but also to show that in a number of disease areas, there are structures originally isolated from marine invertebrates and free-living microbes that have potential, but will need to be ?adopted? by pharmaceutical houses in order to maximize their potential.

Marine-Derived Pharmaceuticals - Challenges and Opportunities

“…Functions of such metabolites are intra- and interspecific signaling, deterrence of herbivores and predators, suppression of competing neighbors, inhibition of bacterial and fungal invasion, or protection against UV radiation. These chemicals have enormous potential to become drugs, medicinal products, experimental tools or food supplements (Lindequist and Schweder, 2001; Molinski et al ., 2009; Hill and Fenical, 2010; Proksch et al ., 2010; Debbab et al ., 2010; Radjasa et al ., 2011; Newman and Cragg, 2004, 2014, 2016). …”

“…The more we know about the structural elements that are necessary for pharmacological effect, the more we can focus on the essential structural components. The halichondrine derivate eribulin is a synthetic molecule which is much smaller than the natural original compound (Newman and Cragg, 2016). Chemical and/or enzymatic modifications of the natural compound as lead structure can increase the structural variability and improve the properties of the product (Lindequist and Schweder, 2001; Radjasa et al ., 2011).…”

“…1A) and spongouridine (Fig. 1B) from the Caribbean sponge Tethya crypta (Bergmann and Feeney 1951; Bergmann and Burke, 1955; Newman and Cragg, 2016). The sponge is presently named Tectytethya crypta and was formerly also known as Cryptotethya crypta .…”

“…Famous examples are marine biopolymers like agar and carrageenan, the vitamins A and D from fish liver oil or polyunsaturated fatty acids like eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid. The real marine drug development started with the discovery of spongothymidine and spongouridine in the 1950s from the Caribbean sponge Tethya crypta (Bergmann and Feeney, 1951; Bergman and Burke, 1955; Sagar et al ., 2010, Anjum et al ., 2016; Newman and Cragg, 2016). Cephalosporin C, produced by the fungus Acremonium chrysogenum , isolated from Mediterranean sea water samples nearby Sardinia in the 1940s, was the starting point for the development of the antibiotic class of cephalosporins (König, 1992).…”

The U.S. Culture Collection Network Responding to the Requirements of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing

“…Waves of discovery parallel the exploration of new sources, beginning with macrobiota and expanding to extreme terrestrial environments (7,8) and marine environments in the modern era (9). The present frontier is the exploration of genome sequences using bioinformatic approaches coupled with manipulation of gene expression (10,11).…”