Biosynthesis of marine natural products: microorganisms and macroalgae.

Abstract

This review covers the literature published on the biosynthesis of marine microbial and macroalgal natural products over a 10-year period from 1989 through 1998. A companion review covering the same time period on the biosynthesis of natural products from marine macroorganisms will appear at a later date in this journal. An earlier report by Garson published in this journal surveyed the whole field of marine natural product biosynthesis through mid 1988.1 The field through mid 1992 was reviewed elsewhere in an updated report,2 and several reviews covering specific aspects of marine microbial and macroalgal natural product biosynthesis have been published during this period. Reviewed biosynthetic topics include dinoflagellate and algal sterol side chains,3,4 algal oxylipins,5–8 and microalgal metabolites.9,10 Some of the microorganisms discussed in this report are not strictly marine. Bacteria isolated from coastal waters may have originated from terrestrial habitats and washed into the ocean. Many of these bacteria found at the interface of terrestrial and marine environments, especially the actinobacteria, tolerate wide ranges of salinities. The biosynthesis of natural products from freshwater cyanobacteria and microalgae are described for compounds that are structurally related to marine products. The biosynthetic origins of many marine invertebrate-derived natural products are not clear and have been proposed to involve associated microorganisms. A section on symbiotic microorganisms highlights our current knowledge on the involvement of invertebrate-hosted microorganisms in natural product biosynthesis through cellular localization studies. The review is organized on the basis of a similar taxonomic system used in previous marine natural product biosynthesis1, 2 and structure11 reviews. General labeling patterns consistently used throughout this report are outlined in Fig. 1. 2 Marine microorganisms