Bioactive Coumarins from Marine Sources: Origin, Structural Features and Pharmacological Properties

Nature is an ancient pharmacy that is largely used as an inspiring source for drug discovery processes for the early eras. Several drugs used nowadays are of natural product origin or inspired on the basis of natural product structures and approximately half of the 20 best-selling non-protein drugs are related to natural products. However, a largely unexplored marine world that presumably harbors the most biodiversity may be the vastest resource to discover compounds with remarkable biological properties. Marine based drug discovery research has been mainly focused on crude extracts. The purpose of this review is to summarize the findings reported in this area, particularly focuses on marine-derived coumarincontaining compounds.