title: Bioactive peptides from marine organisms: a short overview.
abstract: Marine organisms are an immense source of new biologically active compounds. These compounds are unique because the aqueous environment requires a high demand of specific and potent bioactive molecules. Diverse peptides with a wide range of biological activities have been discovered, including antimicrobial, antitumoral, and antiviral activities and toxins amongst others. These proteins have been isolated from different phyla such as Porifera, Cnidaria, Nemertina, Crustacea, Mollusca, Echinodermata and Craniata. Purification techniques used to isolate these peptides include classical chromatographic methods such as gel filtration, ionic exchange and reverse-phase HPLC. Multiple in vivo and in vitro bioassays are coupled to the purification process to search for the biological activity of interest. The growing interest to study marine natural products results from the discovery of novel pharmacological tools including potent anticancer drugs now in clinical trials. This review presents examples of interesting peptides obtained from different marine organisms that have medical relevance. It also presents some of the common methods used to isolate and characterize them.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Quimica, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Circuito Exterior, Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico 04510, DF, Mexico.
authors.forename: Fernando
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lazcano-Pérez
authors.forename: Sergio A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Román-González
authors.forename: Nuria
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sánchez-Puig
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Arreguin-Espinosa
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000494:pharmacology; D059001:Aquatic Organisms / Q000737:chemistry*; D001688:Biological Products / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000494:pharmacology; D010455:Peptides / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000494:pharmacology
chemical_list: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D001688:Biological Products; D010455:Peptides