Synthesis and Medicinal Chemistry of Marine Natural Products

Marine natural products are generally isolated in small amounts, which are often inadequate for extensive drug screening and, sometimes, even for their full structure characterization Moreover, unaltered natural molecules may possess suboptimal pharmacological properties and thus, in order to successfully become drugs, their drug-like space should be efficiently explored. The potential of bioactive marine natural products (hits) in lead generation and optimization relies heavily on the design and implementation of synthetic strategies, studies, and methodologies, often combined with extensive use of computational tools.

This section of Marine Drugs is devoted to the publication of original research articles, reviews and communications reporting on synthetic aspects, which may range from chemical reaction-assisted structural elucidation and sustainable methods to produce bioactive marine metabolites, to innovative approaches to explore the biologically relevant chemical space of bioactive marine natural products.

Scope

• Chemical reaction-assisted structural elucidation of bioactive marine metabolites
• Total and semisynthesis of bioactive marine metabolites
• Biomimetic synthesis of marine natural products and analogues
• Diversity-oriented synthesis (DOS) of marine natural product scaffolds
• Mutasynthetic production of bioactive marine natural products analogues
• Green methodologies/reactions for production of marine metabolites and analogues
• Structure-based design of potential drug candidates based on marine natural product leads
• Fragment Based Lead Discovery (FBDD) screening approaches using marine natural products
• Studies of Structure-Activity Relationships (SAR) and optimization of bioactive marine compounds
• In silico prediction of drug-like parameters of bioactive marine metabolites and molecular modelling studies for the “hit-to-lead” process
• Computational studies providing new insights into the synthesis of potential drugs