Bioactive secondary metabolite

For centuries, fungi have been utilized by humans for their ability to convert complex and simple substrates into more usable, palatable and/or valuable forms. Optimization of the fungal strains and bioprocesses responsible for these amazing transformations takes time. 

Abe K Gomi K. 2008. Food products fermented by Aspergillus oryzae. In Goldman, G.H. Osmani, S.A. (editors). The AspergrUr Genomics, Medical Aspects, Biotechnology, and Research Methods. Boca Raton, FL CRC Press, pp. 429 39. 

Monaghan RL, Alberts AW, Hoffman CH, Alberts-Schonberg GA. 1980. Hypocholesteremic fermentation products and process of preparation. US Patent 4,231,938. 

Alberts AW, Chen J, Kuron G, et al. 1980. Mevinolin a highly potent competitive inhibitor of hydroxymethylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase and cholesterol-lowering agent. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA - Biological Sciences 77(7) 3957-3961. 

Andersen MR Nielsen J. 2009. Current status of systems biology in Aspergilli. Fungal Genet Biol 46(Suppl 1) S 180-190. 

---

The bioactive secondary metabolites reported from Broussonetia kazinoki can be classified into major two groups, alkaloids and flavonoids (Table 1), Fig. (1). The Kusano group at Osaka University of Pharmaceutical Sciences in Japan reported over 20 pyrrolidine alkaloids, broussonetines A-H, K-M, O-T, V-X, and Mi, and broussonetinines A and B, four pyrrolidinyl piperidine alkaloids, broussonetines I, J, Ji, and J2, two pyrroline alkaloids, broussonetines U and U, and one pyrrolizidine alkaloid, broussonetine N, from hot water extracts of B. kazinoki [16-24]. As shown in Table 1, some of these alkaloids exhibited strong... 

There Is a Strong Biological and Ecological Rationale for Plants to Produce Novel Bioactive Secondary Metabolites... 

Betina, V., Bioactive Secondary Metabolites of Microorganisms. Progress in Industrial Microbiology, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1994. 

The marine environment is a vast resource for the discovery of structurally unique bioactive secondary metabolites, some belonging to totally novel chemical classes.8 Sessile benthic organisms including the Porifera, Cnidaria, Bryozoa, and Tunicata as well as marine algae have developed an arsenal of compounds which have been demonstrated to confer a competitive advantage in ecosystems characterized by extreme resource limitations. Interactions of these organisms at the genetic,... 

In spite of the difficulties reported, model primary culture systems have been established for shallow-water sponges that produce bioactive secondary metabolites. It has been demonstrated that cultured cells can be stimulated to divide by mitogens and retain the ability to synthesize bioactive compounds.115116 These successes suggest that, with a greater understanding of requirements for growth and compound production, invertebrate cell culture may become a viable source for bioactive marine natural products. 

Higher plants are sessile and are consumed by motile organisms, namely other eukaryotes and prokaryotes. Plants defend themselves by physical barriers including cell walls at the cellular level, by the waxy cuticle of leaves and by bark and thorns at the macroscopic level. Plants also defend themselves from fungal and bacterial pathogens and animal herbivores by elaborating a variety of bioactive secondary metabolites and defensive proteins. There may be as many as 100,000 different kinds of plant defensive compounds of which about 30,000 have been isolated and structurally characterized. Biochemical targets have been determined in vitro or in vivo for some thousands of the defensive compounds isolated to date. 

Olano C, Lombo F, Mendez C, Salas JA (2008) Improving Production of Bioactive Secondary Metabolites in Actinomycetes by Metabolic Engineering. Metab Eng 10 281... 

Considerations of biodiversity as a source of new leads must address the tme biological origin of desired bioactive secondary metabolites. This is most certainly true when considering the marine environment as a source of new leads for the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries. 

ABSTRACT Marine invertebrates such as ascidians, sponges and others are a prolific source of bioactive secondary metabolites. We have isolated a variety of marine natural products from the Okinawan marine invertebrates by using the sea urchin egg assay. Our recent work, the isolation, structure determination and activities of chlorinated macrolides, sesterterpenic acids, a bromotyrosine derivative, acetogenin derived endoperoxides, diterpene alkaloids, sesquiterpene quinones and spiro-sesquiterpenes, is presented in this article. The syntheses of these metabolites are also described. 

It has been amply demonstrated that ascidians are prolific producers of novel bioactive secondary metabolites [64-66]. A significant number of ascidian-derived compounds have entered into preclinical trials as antitumor agents [67]. Examples include didemnin B (went through phase... 

Abstract Diverse arrays of new bioactive secondary metabolites have been isolated from marine microorganisms and the number of publications in this area has greatly increased in recent years. In this review, the emphasis is placed on new compounds with antitumor, enzyme inhibitors, antivirus, and other bioactive metabolites from fungi, bacteria, actinomycetes, and cyanobacteria reported between 2000 and 2005. Supply is a major limitation in the development of marine bioproducts, and the methods for supplying these products are important. So in this review, the secondary major point is placed on the chemical synthetic studies. References of 390 structures and 263 citations are overall presented in this review. 

Betina V. Bioactive secondary metabolites of microorganisms. In Progress Industrial Microbiology. Vol. 30. Amsterdam Elsevier, 1994, pp 136-144. 

In this chapter, a rationale of the structure-activity relationships of various series of bioactive secondary metabolites from Indo-Pacific marine invertebrates is reviewed. These include alkaloids, terpenes and polybrominated diphenyl ethers which were subjected to a series of bioassays in search for insecticidal, antibacterial, fungicidal, and cytotoxic lead compounds. From these various biotests, it was observed that the bioactivity of an analogue is not due to general toxicity but rather possesses a degree of specificity on a particular target biomolecule. The relationship between chemical structures and biological activity is related to the specific action of a compound. 

In nature, there are a large number of bioactive secondary metabolites produced by microorganisms and plants, probably for proliferation of the producer under living conditions. Our accumulative knowledge on biosynthetic pathways of natural products indicates that the unique backbone of natural products such as polyketides, polypeptides, and terpenes is constructed by a relatively small number of biosynthetic enzyme systems. The Diels-Alder reaction provides a further option to diversify secondary metabolites since this reaction... 

---