Isolation, Bioactivities, and Synthesis of Lamellarin Alkaloids: A Review

Lamellarin alkaloid is a large class of marine alkaloids with diverse bioactivities. These heterocycles have been isolated from diverse marine organisms, mainly ascidians and sponges. They possess a fused 14-phenyl-6H-[1]benzopyrano[40,30:4,5] pyrrolo[2,1- a]isoquinoline or non-fused 3,4-diarylpyrrole-2-carboxylate ring systems. Until now, more than 50 lamellarins have been isolated from marine organisms. Various lamellarins exhibit valuable bioactivities, such as cytotoxicity, topoisomerase I inhibition, protein kinases inhibition, multidrug resistance reversal, and anti-HIV-1 activity. Due to their valuable biological activity, the synthesis of lamerallins has received great attention of chemists and a vast number of synthetic methods have been developed. This article gives overview of studies on lamellarins isolation, their bioactivities, and synthetic approaches for their total synthesis.