Synoxazolidinone C; a bicyclic member of the synoxazolidinone family with antibacterial and anticancer activities

The chemistry and biology of organic guanidine derivatives

The chemistry and biology of organic natural guanidines are reviewed, including the isolation, structure determination, synthesis, biosynthesis and biological activities of alkaloids, non-ribosomal peptides, guanidine-bearing terpenes, polyketides and shikimic acid derivatives from natural sources.

MabCent: Arctic marine bioprospecting in Norway

The deep waters surrounding the coastline of the northern parts of Norway represent an exciting biotope for marine exploration. Dark and cold Arctic water generates a hostile environment where the ability to adapt is crucial to survival. These waters are nonetheless bountiful and a diverse plethora of marine organisms thrive in these extreme conditions, many with the help of specialised chemical compounds. In comparison to warmer, perhaps more inviting shallower tropical waters, the Arctic region has not been as thoroughly investigated. MabCent is a Norwegian initiative based in Tromsø that aims to change this. Since 2007, scientists within MabCent have focussed their efforts on the study of marine organisms inhabiting the Arctic waters with the long term goal of novel drug discovery and development. The activities of MabCent are diverse and range from sampling the Arctic ice shelf to the chemical synthesis of promising secondary metabolites discovered during the screening process. The current review will present the MabCent pipeline from isolation to identification of new bioactive marine compounds via an extensive screening process. An overview of the main activities will be given with particular focus on isolation strategies, bioactivity screening and structure determination. Pitfalls, hard earned lessons and the results so far are also discussed.

Occurrence of halogenated alkaloids

Once considered to be isolation artifacts or chemical "mistakes" of nature, the number of naturally occurring organohalogen compounds has grown from a dozen in 1954 to >5000 today. Of these, at least 25% are halogenated alkaloids. This is not surprising since nitrogen-containing pyrroles, indoles, carbolines, tryptamines, tyrosines, and tyramines are excellent platforms for biohalogenation, particularly in the marine environment where both chloride and bromide are plentiful for biooxidation and subsequent incorporation into these electron-rich substrates. This review presents the occurrence of all halogenated alkaloids, with the exception of marine bromotyrosines where coverage begins where it left off in volume 61 of The Alkaloids. Whereas the biological activity of these extraordinary compounds is briefly cited for some examples, a future volume of The Alkaloids will present full coverage of this topic and will also include selected syntheses of halogenated alkaloids. Natural organohalogens of all types, especially marine and terrestrial halogenated alkaloids, comprise a rapidly expanding class of natural products, in many cases expressing powerful biological activity. This enormous proliferation has several origins: (1) a revitalization of natural product research in a search for new drugs, (2) improved compound characterization methods (multidimensional NMR, high-resolution mass spectrometry), (3) specific enzyme-based and other biological assays, (4) sophisticated collection methods (SCUBA and remote submersibles for deep ocean marine collections), (5) new separation and purification techniques (HPLC and countercurrent separation), (6) a greater appreciation of traditional folk medicine and ethobotany, and (7) marine bacteria and fungi as novel sources of natural products. Halogenated alkaloids are truly omnipresent in the environment. Indeed, one compound, Q1 (234), is ubiquitous in the marine food web and is found in the Inuit from their diet of whale blubber. Given the fact that of the 500,000 estimated marine organisms--which are the source of most halogenated alkaloids--only a small percentage have been investigated for their chemical content, it is certain that myriad new halogenated alkaloids are awaiting discovery. For example, it is estimated that nearly 4000 species of bryozoans have not been examined for their chemical content. The few species that have been studied contain some extraordinary halogenated alkaloids, such as hinckdentine A (610) and the chartellines (611-613). Of the estimated 1.5 million species of fungi, secondary metabolites have been characterized from only 5000 species. The future seems bright for the collector of halogenated alkaloids!