Ecological leads for natural product discovery: Novel sesquiterpene hydroquinones from the red macroalga Peyssonnelia sp.

ABSTRACT: Pharmacologically-motivated marine natural product investigations have yielded a large variety of structurally unique compounds with interesting biomedical properties, but the natural roles of these molecules often remain unknown. While secondary metabolites may function as antimicrobial chemical defenses, few studies have examined this hypothesis. In the present investigation, chromatographic fractions from 69 collections of Fijian red macroalgae representing at least 43 species were evaluated for growth inhibition of three microbial pathogens and saprophytes of marine macrophytes. At least one microbe was suppressed by fraction(s) of all evaluated algae, suggesting that antimicrobial defenses are common among tropical seaweeds. From these leads, peyssonoic acids A-B (1-2), novel sesquite

SUBMITTER: Lane AL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2908918 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature