Special Issue "Marine Anti-infective Agents"

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Miguel O. Mitchell
Department of Chemistry, Henson School of Science and Technology, Salisbury University, Salisbury, MD 21801-6860, USA
Website: http://faculty.salisbury.edu/~momitchell
E-Mail:
Interests: rational design and synthesis of antitubercular; anti-MRSA; anti-VRE and anticholinesterase agents; indole alkaloid natural product synthesis

Submission

All papers should be submitted to marinedrugs@mdpi.org with copy to the Editors. Articles will be published continuously until the deadline and papers will be listed together at the special issue websites. Both, research articles and review articles are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editors for announcement on this website.

Submitted papers should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere. All papers are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors, sample copies and other relevant information for submitting papers are available on the Instructions for Authors page.Marine Drugs is an international peer-reviewed quarterly journal published by Molecular Diversity Preservation International. Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a paper.

Open Access Article Processing Charges are 1000 CHF per paper. English correction fees (250 CHF) will be added in certain cases (1250 CHF per paper for those papers that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.). Starting 1 January 2010, Article Processing Charges are of 1400 CHF per accepted article for Marine Drugs.

• antibacterial
• antitrypanosomal
• antimycobacterial
• antitubercular, tuberculosis
• antifungal
• antiviral
• antimalarial, malaria
• antiprotozoal
• antimonial, Leishmania

Title: Bioactive Marine Secondary Metabolites with Antibacterial, Antiviral and Antifungal Activities
Authors: Abdessamad Debbab¹, Sherif S. Ebada¹, Amal H. Aly², Peter Proksch¹
Affiliations: ¹ Institut für Pharmazeutische Biologie und Biotechnologie Heinrich-Heine-Universität Universitätsstr. 1, Geb.26.23.00.34 D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
² Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Khartoum Sq. Azarita, Alexandria, Egypt
Abstract: The vast resources of marine kingdom have received increasing attention from chemists and pharmacologists and played an important role in the explosive growth of biomedical science during the past two decades. The tremendous chemical and biological diversity is most probably due to a wide variety of conditions in which marine organisms have evolved in order to survive: conditions which are more extreme and self limiting compared to their terrestrial counterparts, therefore it appears possible that marine organisms are ideal targets and a potential source for discovery of totally new classes of drugs. A relatively small number of marine plants, animals, and microbes have yielded more than 15,000 natural products, of which a lot of compounds showed potential pharmaceutical activities. Some of them have been already launched in the pharmaceutical market and others have already entered the clinical trial phases.
This review highlights marine secondary metabolites with potential anti-infectious activities such as antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal activities, including compounds that are currently undergoing clinical evaluation.

Type of Paper: Review
Title: Marine Quorum Sensing Antagonists for Aquaculture and Medicine
Author: Miguel O. Mitchell
Affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Henson School of Science and Technology, Salisbury University, Salisbury, MD 21801-6860, USA; E-mail: momitchell@salisbury.edu
Abstract: Quorum sensing (QS) is a cell-cell communication and gene regulatory mechanism that permits bacteria to generate biofilms and toxins. This review focuses on the discovery of marine compounds, analogs of marine compounds, or enzymes from marine organisms that inhibit QS and studies demonstrating that QS inhibition improves the health of aquaculture and is effective against human pathogens.

Type of Paper: Review
Title: Conventional and Unconventional Anti-Microbials from Fish, Invertebrates and Micro-algae
Authors: V. J. Smith¹, E. A. Dyrynda² and A. P. Desbois¹
Affiliations: ¹ St Andrews University, St Andrews, Scotland; E-Mail: vjs1@st-andrews.ac.uk (V.J.S.)
² Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland
Abstract: All eukarotic organisms, singled-celled or multi-cellular, produce a diverse array of natural anti-infective agents that, in addition to conventional antimicrobial peptides, also include proteins and other molecules often not regarded as part of the innate defences. Examples range from fatty acids, histones and other structural components of cells to pigments and regulatory proteins. These probably represent very ancient defence factors that have been re-used in new ways during evolution. This review discusses the nature, biological role in host protection and potential biotechnological uses of some of these compounds, focussing on those from fish, marine invertebrates and marine micro-algae.