Microbial secondary metabolites activity

Low Molecular Weight Enzyme Inhibitors - Microbial Secondary Metabolites with Various Pharmacological Activity... 

Microbial Secondary Metabolites with Unique Biological Activity and Chemical Diversity... 

Microbial secondary metabolites can exert regulation of cellular activities in higher organisms [ 185]. It has been hypothesized that cell-to-cell communication first evolved in unicellular organisms, long before the appearance of specialized... 

An important class of active agents that potently inhibit HMG-CoA reductase has evolved from extensive studies for microbial secondary metabolites. Since Brown and Goldstein have reported that the rate of cholesterol biosynthesis is determined by the activity of HMG-CoA reductase [19,20,21], this enzyme has been known to be a prime target for discovery of novel therapeutics against hypercholesterolemia. Several fimgal secondary metabolites were isolated as useful inhibitors of endogenous cholesterol biosynthesis and developed as commercially available hypolipidemics. Endo and Hasumi have extensively reviewed natural, semisynthetic and synthetic HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors in 1993 [22],... 

The present volume reflects these developments, and there is a growing emphasis on bioactive natural products. Articles in this volume include those on structure-activity relationships of highly sweet natural products, chemical constituents of cchinodenns, diterpenoids from Rabdosia and Eremophila sp., structural studies on saponins, marine sesquiterpene quinoncs and antimicrobial activity of amphibian venoms. The reviews on bioactive metabolites of Phomopsis, cardenolide detection by ELISA, xenocoumacins and bioactive dihydroisocoumarins, CD studies of carbohydrate-molybdate complexes, oncogene function inhibitors from microbial secondary metabolites and Gelsemium and Lupin alkaloids present frontier developments in several areas of natural product chemistry. It is hoped that the present volume, which contains articles by eminent authorities in each field, will be received with the same enthusiasm as the previous volumes of this series. 

Figure Integrated scheme for natural product screening for the example of pharmacologically active microbial secondary metabolites.

Voter J. Lipopeptides, an interesting class of microbial secondary metabolites. Schlunegger UP, ed. Biologically Active Molecules. Berlin Sprii er-Verlag, 1989 27-38. 

The discovery and subsequent development of microbial secondary metabolites that have direct utility in crop agriculture is rare and costly. In general structural complexity will limit utility unless S3mthesis and modelling lead to simplified analo es with favorable cost-of-goods per treatment. At Monsanto we have been involved in the search for crop chemicals of natural origin for several years. While numerous active compounds have been characterized, the diabroticins and the recently reported herbicide, herboxidiene(iO), are by far the most highly active that we have discovered to date. 

Most of the antibiotics commercially available nowadays are derivatives of natural compounds produced by bacteria or fungi. It is widely accepted that in nature these secondary metabolites can act as weapons for microbial cell defence, inhibiting the growth of competitors. However, it seems that antibiotics have, in nature, more sophisticated and complex functions [1-3]. Many environmental bacteria can not only cope with natural antimicrobial substances but also benefit from their presence. For instance, the use of antibiotics by bacteria as biochemical signals, modulators of metabolic activity or even carbon sources has been demonstrated [1, 2, 4]. In other cases, antibiotics can be tolerated because they have structures similar to the natural substrates of bacterial housekeeping enzymes and thus are inactivated, leading to a natural form of resistance [2]. These are just some... 

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