Marine Natural Products from the Yucatan Peninsula

Abstract

Mexico is one of the three areas of the world with the greatest terrestrial and cultural biological diversity. The diversity of Mexican medicinal flora has been studied for a long time and several bioactive compounds have been isolated. The investigation of marine resources, and particularly the potential of Mexican marine resources, has not been intensively investigated, even though the Yucatan Peninsula occupies 17.4% of the total of the Mexican coast, with great biological diversity in its coasts and the ocean. There are very few studies on the chemistry of natural products from marine organisms that were collected along the coasts of the Yucatan Peninsula and most of them are limited to the evaluation of the biological activity of their organic extracts. The investigations carried out on marine species from the Yucatan Peninsula resulted in the identification of a wide structural variety of natural products that include polyketides, terpenoids, nitrogen compounds, and biopolymers with cytotoxic, antibacterial, antifouling, and neurotoxic activities. This review describes the literature of bioprospecting and the exploration of the natural product diversity of marine organisms from the coasts of the Yucatan Peninsula up to mid-2019.

In Silico Screening of Natural Products Isolated from Mexican Herbal Medicines against COVID-19

“…We obtained a list of the 100 natural products isolated from the most traditionally used plants, as stated by [ 18 ] and [ 17 ]. Additionally, we added ten essential marine natural products and already reported compounds with antiviral activities [ 22 , 23 , 24 ]. From such compounds, we calculate the chemoinformatic properties using the Osiris DataWarrior (freeware software, DataWarrior V4.7.2, Idorsia Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Allschwil, Switzerland), which calculates lipophilicity (expressed as compound logP), solubility in water (expressed as logS), molecular weight, druglikeness, leadlikeness and toxicoinformatic properties of compounds.…”

“…A complete table of all descriptors could be seen in Table S1. Hence, in an attempt to quickly propose the discovery of natural products that could be used against SARS-CoV-2, in the present study we performed a chemoinformatic analysis with 100 compounds isolated from the previously mentioned medicinal plants and some marine natural products reported in Mexico [22,23].…”

In Vitro and In Vivo Assessment of the Efficacy of Bromoageliferin, an Alkaloid Isolated from the Sponge Agelas dilatata, against Pseudomonas aeruginosa

“…In this study, we continued to search for natural bioactive products from marine organisms [12,13] more specifically from those collected off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico) [14,15]. We focused our attention on the sponge A. dilatata collected from Cozumel Island, because of the antibacterial activity detected in organic extracts of the sponge and the lack of reported chemical studies of its secondary metabolites.…”

Marine Organisms from the Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico) as a Potential Natural Source of Antibacterial Compounds

“…In tropical waters, species and their predators compete strongly for space, and marine organisms produce secondary metabolites as chemical defence mechanisms [15]. Mexico has been considered one of the three areas in the world with the highest terrestrial and marine biological diversity [16], and although the chemical diversity of the Mexican medicinal flora has long been investigated, yielding a wide variety of bioactive compounds [17], the chemical potential of the marine resources has not been widely explored [18]. The Mexican territory covers an area of 2,946,825 km 2 and has 11,122 km of coastline, which extends from the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, including the Baja California peninsula (northwest) and the Yucatan peninsula (southeast), which hosts a rich marine flora and fauna [19].…”