Marine Natural Compounds – from Chemistry to Application

Dear Colleagues,

The oceans are a place of incredible biodiversity, and marine life represents almost 80% of the world's biota. Thus, not surprisingly, marine organisms such as tunicates, mollusks, sponges, sea slugs, bryozoans, bacteria, cyanobacteria, algae, specific fish species, and crustaceans are an inexhaustible source of chemical entities with proven bioactivities, including antimicrobial, antifibrotic, analgesic, anti-inflammatory, antitumor, cancer preventive, neuroprotective, and others. In fact, marine organisms represent the most recent source of bioactive natural products concerning terrestrial plants, with over 99% considered new compounds, with no analogues found among terrestrial organisms. Thus, even far from traditional medicine applications, widely applied to terrestrial plants, marine organisms have asserted themselves in several domains, such as medicinal, pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and agriculture, with considerable bioeconomic benefits for different industries. Notably, there are presently several approved drugs and more than 20 other compounds in different clinical phases, mainly of marine invertebrate and microorganism origin. Many molecules with biomedical functions from marine sources are also used as pharmaceuticals, while marine products represent a large portion of the global nutraceutical market. This transdisciplinary Topic aims to bring together original research and review articles covering distinct aspects related to marine natural products, including but not limited to their extraction and purification; structural characterization of new compounds; biological activities and mechanisms of actions of extracts, purified fractions, isolated compounds, and/or of novel value-added products; structure-bioactive relations; interaction with other substances in the formulated matrices; and safety and stability of new value-added products.

Dr. Susana M. Cardoso
Dr. Diana Cláudia Pinto
Dr. Maria Manuel Gil
Topic Editors