Accessing Nystatin through Mariculture

Understanding our oceans and their marine ecosystems has enabled the development of sustainable systems for mariculture. While the bulk of studies to date have focused on the production of food, its remarkable expanse has inspired the translation of other markets towards aquatic environments. This manuscript outlines an approach to pharmaceutical mariculture, by demonstrating a benchmark for future prototyping. Here, design, field evaluation and natural product chemistry are united to successfully produce nystatin at sea. This study begins by evaluating new designs for culture flasks, illustrating a next step towards developing self-contained bioreactors for culturing in marine environments. Through pilot studies, an underwater system was developed to cost effectively produce cultures that yielded 200 mg of nystatin per deployment. Overall, this study demonstrates the potential for the practical culturing of microbes in a marine environment and provides an important next step for the fledgling field of molecular mariculture.

The Natural Product Chemistry of Terpenoids - a Tribute to the Remarkable Legacy of Academician Pavel Vlad

The purpose of this paper is to put forward concisely some of the most valuable scientific contributions of academician Pavel Vlad and his disciples to the field of natural product chemistry of terpenoids. Under the guidance and with direct contribution of academician Pavel Vlad, new approaches to determining the absolute configuration of a series of labdanic diterpenoids and of converting them into bi-, tri- and tetra- cyclic compounds have been designed. Novel universal methods for synthesizing tetrahydrofurans from 1,4-glycols, olefins from tertiary alcoholic acetates, as well as dienones by means of photodehydrogenation of unsaturated cyclic ketons have been developed by academician Pavel Vlad.

Multitargeted Effects of Vitexin and Isovitexin on Diabetes Mellitus and Its Complications

Background. Till date, there is no known antidote to cure diabetes mellitus despite the discovery and development of diverse pharmacotherapeutic agents many years ago. Technological advancement in natural product chemistry has led to the isolation of analogs of vitexin and isovitexin found in diverse bioresources. These compounds have been extensively studied to explore their pharmacological relevance in diabetes mellitus. Aim of the Study. The present review was to compile results from in vitro and in vivo studies performed with vitexin and isovitexin derivatives relating to diabetes mellitus and its complications. A systematic online literature query was executed to collect all relevant articles published up to March 2020. Results. In this piece, we have collected data and presented it in a one-stop document to support the multitargeted mechanistic actions of vitexin and isovitexin in controlling diabetes mellitus and its complications. Conclusion. Data collected hint that vitexin and isovitexin work by targeting diverse pathophysiological and metabolic pathways and molecular drug points involved in the clinical manifestations of diabetes mellitus. This is expected to provide a deeper understanding of its actions and also serve as a catapult for clinical trials and application research.

Genome Sequence of Streptomyces sp. Strain HB-N217, Isolated from the Marine Sponge Forcepia sp.

ABSTRACT The genome sequence of the Forcepia sponge-derived bacterium Streptomyces sp. strain HB-N217 was determined, with approximately 8.25 Mbp and a G+C content of 72.1%. Thirty biosynthetic gene clusters that bear the capability to produce secondary metabolites were predicted. The results will aid marine natural product chemistry and sponge-microbe association studies.

The Three Pillars of Natural Product Dereplication. Alkaloids from the Bulbs of Urceolina peruviana (C. Presl) J.F. Macbr. as a Preliminary Test Case

The role and importance of the identification of natural products are discussed in the perspective of the study of secondary metabolites. The rapid identification of already reported compounds, or structural dereplication, is recognized as a key element in natural product chemistry. The biological taxonomy of metabolite producing organisms, the knowledge of metabolite molecular structures, and the availability of metabolite spectroscopic signatures are considered as the three pillars of structural dereplication. The role and the construction of databases is illustrated by references to the KNApSAcK, UNPD, CSEARCH, and COCONUT databases, and by the importance of calculated taxonomic and spectroscopic data as substitutes for missing or lost original ones. Two NMR-based tools, the PNMRNP database that derives from UNPD, and KnapsackSearch, a database generator that provides taxonomically focused libraries of compounds, are proposed to the community of natural product chemists. The study of the alkaloids from Urceolina peruviana, a plant from the Andes used in traditional medicine for antibacterial and anticancer actions, has given the opportunity to test different approaches to dereplication, favoring the use of publicly available data sources.

Vermittlungsarbeit

In which ways do knowledge production and economic value creation interact in natural product chemistry as various kinds of data and compounds are generated, analysed and circulated? And is there something new about those services offered by specialised actors? Based on an ethnographic case study in a small company and on insights from the history and sociology of science and medicine, this book investigates a series of practices which, considered as a whole, constitute a form of market-oriented intermediary work. For this purpose, highly specialised research is not enough: Mobilising a vast array of biological materials is as crucial as being able to deal with regulatory issues and offer compounds in standardised formats.