Bioactive Molecules from Extreme Environments
A special issue of Marine Drugs (ISSN 1660-3397).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2020) | Viewed by 74123
Special Issue Editor
Interests: antarctic and arctic marine environments; bacteria; fish; sponges; marine natural products; marine peptides/proteins; protein structure/function; hemoproteins; marine antioxidants; marine anti-UV; functional ingredients; cosmeceuticals; PUFA
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Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
In a time of major changes in our society, it is essential to turn our attention to the sea to find additional solutions for a sustainable future. In this context, marine organisms living in complex habitats exposed to extreme conditions are drawing attention to drug discovery as new sources for bioactive compounds. Extreme environments experience steady or fluctuating exposure to one or more environmental stressors, for example, temperature, salinity, osmolarity, UV radiation, pressure, or pH. In marine ecosystems, these habitats are important “hot spots” of microbial, metazoan, and symbiotic diversity. Organisms from marine extreme environments have developed unique survival strategies for growing and reproducing under such harsh conditions. Under these circumstances, bioactive compounds are of major relevance for species survival and success. For these reasons, extreme marine environments are expected to harbour unique biological communities that can biosynthesise novel bioactive compounds, potentially valuable for many applications, including human health and pharmaceutical sectors, as natural ingredients for fine chemical products (e.g., cosmetics), for bioremediation, etc.
Research on extreme environments often requires specialised methodologies, sophisticated equipment, and complex and expensive infrastructure, as well as access. Recent technological developments have made these areas more accessible and, currently, research on life is growing fast. However, biodiversity in these environments is still largely unknown, despite the fact that they are a highly promising reservoir for the discovery of bioactive molecules.
The aim of the Special Issue “Bioactive Molecules from Extreme Environments” is to collect studies on bioactive compounds from organisms inhabiting such marine habitats, increasing our knowledge of biological resources in terms of (i) biodiversity, (ii) bioprospecting, and (iii) molecular and enzymatic mechanisms displayed by novel molecules, to be used in biotechnological discovery pipelines and pharmaceutical applications.
I would like to invite scientists working in this field to highlight their important contribution to the scientific community by means of reviews, regular research papers, or short notes on marine natural products from, for example, cold/deep sea, marine hydrothermal vents, and areas of high pressure or high salinity, and all other marine environments considered extremes.
Dr. Daniela Giordano
Guest Editor
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
- Marine natural products
- Bioactive molecules
- Metabolites
- Enzymes
- Peptides
- Extreme environments
- Polar regions
- Deep sea
- Hydrothermal vents
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Related Special Issues
- Bioactive Molecules from Extreme Environments II in Marine Drugs (13 articles)
- Bioactive Molecules from Extreme Environments III in Marine Drugs (6 articles)