Secondary Metabolites from Marine Invertebrate Extracts

Abstract

In drug discovery, natural organisms offer a rich source of bioactive compounds, with over one-third of drugs originating from natural sources. Bioprospecting is the field of systematically screening organisms to discover and isolate novel compounds for drug development or other applications. With the shifting trends of examining the biodiversity of the marine environment, have marine bioprospecting emerged. Within this work, we are utilizing the marine bioprospecting pipeline, develuped by Marbio, to analyse extracts of marine invertebrates, with the goal of isolating novel molecules possessing bioactivity. This study utilized the marine bioprospecting pipeline to analyze 16 marine invertebrate extracts, including 12 from Marbank and four from White Point Biomarine (WPB). Marbank extracts underwent flash chromatography, and resulting fractions were bioactivity screened against cancer cells, while the WPB extracts underwent similuar analysis in an earlier study. In total were six bioactive fractions dereplicated using UHPLC-HR-MS, resulting in the isolation of five compounds via prep-HPLC. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy determined compound structures of the isolated compounds. Upon bioacivity profiling, one compound showed potent cytotoxicity against cancer cells.