Marine Compounds and their Antimicrobial Activities

Natural products have been regarded as important sources that could produce potential chemotherapeutic agents. In the search for new bioactive entities, investigations were expanded to marine habitats. Mankind has known for the last several thousand years that marine organisms contain substances capable of potent biological activity. However, the first serious investigation of marine organisms started only half a century ago. Since then, almost all forms of life in the marine environment (e.g., bacteria, algae, fungi, etc...) have been investigated for their natural product content. In the last several decades, plants, animals and microbes from the marine environment have revealed a portion of what is clearly a tremendous source of structurally diverse and bioactive secondary metabolites. Recent years have seen the introduction into clinical trials of new classes of chemotherapeutic agents, which are derived from marine sources and have novel mechanisms of action. Among other biological activities, the marine ecosystem is increasingly being acknowledged as a source of potential antimicrobial agents. Available treatments for many infectious diseases caused by bacteria, fungi and viruses are limited. Research on new antimicrobial substances must therefore be continued and all possible strategies should be explored. In this review, we will present the structures and antimicrobial activity of natural compounds isolated from marine sources from 2007 to the present.