Current Organic Chemistry - Volume 21, Issue 5, 2017

Marine organisms represent an enormous reservoir of compounds with many potential applications. Microbes, vegetals and animals from the sea have been exploited for numerous purposes. From seaweeds, in particular, many active compounds can be obtained, such as three important phycocolloids: agar, carrageenan and algin. In this report, an overview is given about biological characteristics, cultivation, agar and bio Read More

This paper reviews several scientific articles regarding levels of organic and inorganic contaminants in a variety of marine species coming from two Sicilian protected areas: the Strait of Messina and Cape Peloro lakes (Ganzirri and Faro). Moreover, different analytical techniques for the determinations of organic and inorganic contaminants, and the procedures adopted for the analyses, are summarized. Quantitative and Read More

Sponges are known to be a rich source of structurally diverse bioactive natural products, accounting for approximately one third of the 25,000 novel marine natural products discovered to date. The advancement of molecular techniques, especially next generation sequencing, has revealed a highly diverse and complex microbial consortia associated with sponges. Currently, research is on-going to investigate the role of thes Read More

A growing percentage of aquatic production worldwide is derived from aquaculture, whose importance is increasing due to commercial overfishing and a rising consumer demand for seafood. This has led to an increased interest in quality improvement and certification of seafood products to guarantee their safety, quality, authenticity, and nutritional benefits. In this context, proteomics has arisen as a promising tool for unrav Read More

Marine sponges represent a prolific and chemically diverse source of secondary metabolites, some of which feature hitherto unprecedented carbon skeletons that continue to attract the interest of natural product researchers. The novel chemistry of these metabolites is often accompanied by exceptional bioactivity profiles suggesting these compounds to be potential leads for drug discovery. In recent years, advances in chrom Read More

Mechanically interlocked molecules have attracted the attention of scientists widely. With the functionalization of supramolecular systems novel strategies and approaches were used to construct mechanically interlocked molecules. Currently, the mechanically interlocked molecules have been installed on photochromic molecules to design novel photochromic materials. In the recent years, mechanically interlocked molec Read More

Background: Over the past decade, simple 1-deoxysphingoid bases with a saturated hydrocarbon sidechain such as spisulosine, xestoaminol C, 3-epi-xestoaminol C, clavaminol A have attracted considerable attention from synthetic organic chemists because of their impressive cytotoxic/antiproliferative properties as well as the unique structures possessing a variously configured vicinal amino alcohol motif. Resul Read More