Marine Drugs, Volume 18, Issue 4

This work aimed at improving the targeting and cytotoxicity of simvastatin (SMV) against colon cancer cells. SMV was encapsulated in chitosan polymers, followed by eudragit S100 microparticles. The release of SMV double coated microparticles was depe...

Monostroma nitidum is a green single-cell layered algae that grows on the southwest coast of Japan. It is often used for salad ingredients, boiled tsukudani, soups, etc., due to its health benefits. M. nitidum is composed of many cell aggregates, and...

Sponge-associated fungi are attractive targets for the isolation of bioactive natural products with different pharmaceutical purposes. In this investigation, 20 fungi were isolated from 10 different sponge specimens. One isolate, the fungus Penicilli...

The current emergency due to the worldwide spread of the COVID-19 caused by the new severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a great concern for global public health. Already in the past, the outbreak of severe acute respirator...

Further chemical investigation of the EtOAc extract of the soft coral Lobophytum varium resulted in the discovery of eleven new diterpenoids lobovarols F–P (1–11) of lobane– and prenyleudesmane–types, along with two known meta...

The enzymatic depolymerization of fucoidans from brown algae allowed the production of their standardized derivatives with different biological activities. This work aimed to compare the antiviral activities of native (FeF) and modified with enzyme (...

Palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) is an endogenous lipid mediator with powerful anti-inflammatory and analgesic functions. PEA can be hydrolyzed by a lysosomal enzyme N-acylethanolamine acid amidase (NAAA), which is highly expressed in macrophages and othe...

Fucoidan has a variety of pharmacological activities, but the understanding of the mechanism of fucoidan-induced apoptosis of colorectal cancer cells remains limited. The results of the present study demonstrated that the JNK signaling pathway is inv...

Inspired by the significant α-glucosidase inhibitory activities of (+)- and (−)-pericosine E, we herein designed and synthesized 16 analogs of these marine natural products bearing a methoxy group instead of a chlorine atom at C6. Four of...

Wound healing is a fundamental response to tissue injury and a number of natural products has been found to accelerate the healing process. Herein, we report the preparation of a series of different polarity (organic and aqueous) extracts of the mari...

Ilamycins are cyclopeptides with novel structures that have been isolated from different Actinomycetes. They showed strong anti-tuberculosis activity and could serve as important anti-tuberculosis drug leads. The functions of the pre-tailoring and th...

Current anticancer drugs exhibit limited efficacy and initiate severe side effects. As such, identifying bioactive anticancer agents that can surpass these limitations is a necessity. One such agent, curcumin, is a polyphenolic compound derived from...

The present study investigated the effect of dietary astaxanthin (AX) on the growth performance, antioxidant parameters, and repair of hepatopancreas damage in Pacific white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei). To evaluate the hepatopancreas protective fun...

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Laminarin is a polysaccharide isolated from brown algae that has various biological and pharmacological activities, such as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. We recently reported that pretreated laminarin exerted neuroprotection against t...

Due to its unique properties, collagen is used in the growing fields of pharmaceutical and biomedical devices, as well as in the fields of nutraceuticals, cosmeceuticals, food and beverages. Collagen also represents a valid resource for bioplastics a...

Elevated levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) damage the internal cell components. Padina boryana, a brown alga from the Maldives, was subjected to polysaccharide extraction. The Celluclast enzyme assisted extract (PBE) and ethanol precipitation (...

Breast cancer is the leading cause of death from cancer among women. Higher consumption of dietary marine n-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFAs) is associated with a lower risk of breast cancer. Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahe...

Dysregulation of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway is involved in the development of human hepatocellular carcinoma and has thus emerged as a therapeutic target for this malignant tumor. In this study, we employed sensitive cell-based assays t...

Background: Previously published work has demonstrated that the LPS injection of Ciona robusta leads to the overexpression of a truncated form of an immune-related mRNA (C8short) by means of Ciona robusta (CR) alternative polyadenylation (APA) (CR-AP...

The antimicrobial peptide (AMP) piscidin was identified from Epinephelus lanceolatus and demonstrated to possess antimicrobial and immune-related functions. Supplementation of feed with recombinant Epinephelus lanceolatus piscidin (rEP)-expressing ye...

The anti-inflammatory and anticancer properties of eight meroterpenoids isolated from the brown seaweed Cystoseira usneoides have been evaluated. The algal meroterpenoids (AMTs) 1–8 were tested for their inhibitory effects on the production of...

Enzymatic hydrolysis of native collagen and fibrinogen was carried out under comparable conditions at room temperature. The molecular weight parameters of proteins before and after hydrolysis by thrombin were monitored by gel-penetrating chromatograp...

Oxazole-containing peptides are mostly of marine origin and they form an intriguing family with a broad range of biological activities. Here we classify these peptides on the basis of their chemical structure and discuss a number of representatives o...

The marine-derived fungus Aspergillus falconensis, isolated from sediment collected from the Canyon at Dahab, Red Sea, yielded two new chlorinated azaphilones, falconensins O and P (1 and 2) in addition to four known azaphilone derivatives (3−6...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen using virulence factors and biofilm regulated by quorum sensing (QS) systems to infect patients and protect itself from environmental stress and antibiotics. Interfering with QS systems is a novel a...

Drug discovery is based on bioactivity screening of natural sources, traditionally represented by bacteria fungi and plants. Bioactive natural products and their secondary metabolites have represented the main source for new therapeutic agents, used...

Less than one percent of marine natural products characterized since 1963 have been obtained from the phylum Bryozoa which, therefore, still represents a huge reservoir for the discovery of bioactive metabolites with its ~6000 described species. The...

The goal of this study is to develop optimized chitosan-coated Simvastatin (SIM) nanoparticles (NPs) loaded in an in situ gel (ISG) formulation via a face-centered central composite design (FCCCD). Coated SIM-NPs were doped with Quercetin (QRC) using...

This review examines the current state of knowledge regarding toxins from anthozoans (sea anemones, coral, zoanthids, corallimorphs, sea pens and tube anemones). We provide an overview of venom from phylum Cnidaria and review the diversity of venom c...

Fucoidans are biocompatible, heterogeneous, and fucose rich sulfated polysaccharides biosynthesized in brown algae, which are renowned for their broad-spectrum biofunctional properties. As a continuation of our preliminary screening studies, the pres...

Lung cancer is one of the major causes of death worldwide. Natural molecules with anti-lung cancer potential are of a great interest and considered as very promising alternative to substitute or enhance the efficiency of the conventional drugs. Recen...

Seaweeds have been exploited as both food products and therapeutics to manage human ailments for centuries. This study investigated the metabolite profile of five seaweeds (Halimeda spp., Spyridia hypnoides (Bory de Saint-Vincent) Papenfuss, Valoniop...

Secondary metabolites obtained from marine-derived fungi are rich sources of drug candidates. Three new sesquiterpenoids, chermesiterpenoids A–C (1–3), along with four known alkaloids (4–7), were isolated and identified from the mar...

Several biochemical mechanisms, including the arachidonic acid cascade and activation of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs), are involved in increased tumor survival. Combined application of inhibitors acting on these two pathways may result...

The α9-containing nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) is increasingly emerging as a new tumor target owing to its high expression specificity in breast cancer. αO-Conotoxin GeXIVA is a potent antagonist of α9α10 nAChR. Ne...

Worldwide diffused diseases such as osteoarthritis, atherosclerosis or chronic kidney disease are associated with a tissue calcification process which may involve unexpected local stem cell differentiation. Current pharmacological treatments for such...

High-throughput screening assays have been designed to identify compounds capable of inhibiting phenotypes involved in cancer aggressiveness. However, most studies used commercially available chemical libraries. This prompted us to explore natural pr...

Diverse indoles and bis-indoles extracted from marine sources have been identified as promising anticancer leads. Herein, we designed and synthesized novel bis-indole series 7a–f and 9a–h as Topsentin and Nortopsentin analogs. Our design...

Cold-adapted alginate lyases have unique advantages for alginate oligosaccharide (AOS) preparation and brown seaweed processing. Robust and cold-adapted alginate lyases are urgently needed for industrial applications. In this study, a cold-adapted al...

Sea cucumbers are bottom dwelling invertebrates, which are mostly found on subtropical and tropical sea grass beds, sandy reef flats, or reef slopes. Although constantly exposed to fouling communities in these habitats, many species are surprisingly...

Ciguatera poisoning is linked to the ingestion of seafood that is contaminated with ciguatoxins (CTXs). The structural variability of these polyether toxins in nature remains poorly understood due to the low concentrations present even in highly toxi...

Two 11,20-epoxybriaranes, including a known compound, juncenolide K (1), as well as a new metabolite, fragilide X (2), have been isolated from gorgonian Junceella fragilis collected off the waters of Taiwan. The absolute configuration of juncenolide...

Alginate, an important acidic polysaccharide in marine multicellular algae, has attracted attention as a promising biomass resource for the production of medical and agricultural chemicals. Alginate lyase is critical for saccharification and utilizat...

The world-famous Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) plays a fundamental role in the Antarctic food chain. It resides in cold environments with the most abundant biomass to support the Antarctic ecology and fisheries. Here, we performed the first gen...

Barnacles represent one of the model organisms used for antifouling research, however, knowledge regarding the molecular mechanisms underlying barnacle cyprid cementation is relatively scarce. Here, RNA-seq was used to obtain the transcriptomes of th...

Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) represent a serious threat to humans, especially for those living in poor or developing countries. Almost one-sixth of the world population is at risk of suffering from these diseases and many thousands die because o...

In the last decades, the use of algae in biotechnology and food industries has experienced an exponential growth. Codium tomentosum is a green macroalgae with high biotechnological potential, due to its rich lipidome, although few studies have addres...

α-Conotoxin TxIB specifically blocked α6/α3β2β3 acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs), and it could be a potential probe for studying addiction and other diseases related to α6/α3β2β3 nAChRs. However, as a...

Organisms belonging to Synechococcus sp. genera are observed in all freshwater, brackish, and marine waters of the world. They play a relevant role in these ecosystems, since they are one of the main primary producers, especially in open ocean. Event...