Marine Cyanobacteria: A Source of Lead Compounds and their Clinically-Relevant Molecular Targets

Abstract

The prokaryotic filamentous marine cyanobacteria are photosynthetic microbes that are found in diverse marine habitats, ranging from epiphytic to endolithic communities. Their successful colonization in nature is largely attributed to genetic diversity as well as the production of ecologically important natural products. These cyanobacterial natural products are also a source of potential drug leads for the development of therapeutic agents used in the treatment of diseases, such as cancer, parasitic infections and inflammation. Major sources of these biomedically important natural compounds are found predominately from marine cyanobacterial orders Oscillatoriales, Nostocales, Chroococcales and Synechococcales. Moreover, technological advances in genomic and metabolomics approaches, such as mass spectrometry and NMR spectroscopy, revealed that marine cyanobacteria are a treasure trove of structurally unique natural products. The high potency of a number of natural products are due to their specific interference with validated drug targets, such as proteasomes, proteases, histone deacetylases, microtubules, actin filaments and membrane receptors/channels. In this review, the chemistry and biology of selected potent cyanobacterial compounds as well as their synthetic analogues are presented based on their molecular targets. These molecules are discussed to reflect current research trends in drug discovery from marine cyanobacterial natural products.

Cyanobacterial metabolites as promising drug leads against the Mproand PLproof SARS-CoV-2: anin silicoanalysis

“…It has thus become essential to discover and develop new drugs that specifically target M pro and provide therapeutic relief against SARS-CoV-2. Cyanobacterial metabolites have been identified as promising therapeutics against a range of diseases and disorders owing to an array of biological activities (Tan & Phyo, 2020 ). In the present work, a collection of cyanobacterial metabolites that have displayed significant anticancer, antimicrobial and antiviral activities were assessed to explore their inhibitory prospects against the M pro of SARS-CoV-2.…”

Proteomic Profiling of Emiliania huxleyi Using a Three-Dimensional Separation Method Combined with Tandem Mass Spectrometry

“…They hold potential for the discovery of biopharmaceuticals and antioxidant cosmeceuticals. Previously, several secondary metabolite molecules from marine cyanobacteria were defined as potential anticancer biomolecules [79]. Phlorotannins from brown algae have hypopigmentation effects, which can be applied in the cosmetic industry.…”

Heterologous production of cyanobacterial compounds

“…Cyanobacterial NP drug discovery and development has focused primarily on three aspects, the discovery of novel compounds, the assessment of bioactivities through in vitro and in vivo studies, and the detailed exploration of the mechanism of action on the molecular level (Liang et al., 2019 ; Salvador-Reyes & Luesch, 2015 ; Tan & Phyo, 2020 ). Cyanobacterial NPs possess novel bioactivities of biomedical relevance (Al-Awadhi et al., 2018 , 2020 ; Lee et al., 2011 ; Pereira et al., 2012 ).…”