Bioactive Natural Products from Soft Corals
A special issue of Marine Drugs (ISSN 1660-3397).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2021) | Viewed by 6476
Special Issue Editors
Interests: synthesis of bioactive natural products; structure modification of natural products; chemistry of marine natural products
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: natural product chemistry; establishment and application of natural extract bank
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Marine organisms are regarded as very important producers for bioactive natural products. Among these organisms, soft corals are the second most prolific source of marine natural products, next to sponges. Compared to stony corals, soft corals do not produce calcium carbonate skeletons. Although rare peptide-type and proteinaceous metabolites have been discovered, they biosynthesize abundant natural products with unique carbon skeletons, including fatty acids, steroids, and terpenoids as the main types of secondary metabolite produced. These metabolites can defend the host organisms against predators, fight diseases, and prevent the fouling and overgrowth of other organisms. The discoveries of lemnalol and clavulones in the 1980s and cembranolides before and up to the 1980s make soft corals the attractive targets for new drug development. In addition, metabolites from Pseudopterogorgia elisabethae and Briareum excavatum have been found to demonstrate attracting anti-inflammatory effects. Furthermore, the discovery of austrasulfone and its synthesized derivative dihydroaustrasulfone alcohol exhibit not only anti-inflammatory activity, but the latter compound could potentially exhibit therapeutic ability in the treatment of neuropathic pain, atherosclerosis, and multiple sclerosis. Therefore, natural products from soft corals have been considered to be medicinally important and could be beneficial to human health.
The goal of this Special Issue is to provide a platform for scientists of related fields to share and report the discovery and development of bioactive natural products from soft corals. We invite researchers of this field all over the world to publish original research and review articles in this Special Issue. Potential topics include but are not limited to:
- Soft coral natural products as antifouling agents;
- Soft coral natural products as anti-inflammatory agents;
- Soft coral natural products as anticancer agents;
- Soft coral natural products as antiviral agents;
- Soft coral natural products for fighting diseases.
Prof. Dr. Jyh-Horng Sheu
Prof. Dr. Yuan-Bin Cheng
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Marine Drugs is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- Soft corals
- Natural products and structure elucidation
- Synthesis of bioactive derivatives and activities
- Drug development
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