A variety of biologically active compounds with unique structures and pharmacological properties have been reported to occure in marine organisms. Demospongiae, an important class of marine sponge is known for producing the largest number and diversity of condary metabolites isolated till recent times. The review covers the diverse class of bioactive compounds isolated for therapeutic drug applications from different marine organisms. It is an attempt to update the marine research community with results of our ongoing search for bioactivesecondary metabolites from marine sponge Spongosorites halichondriodes which has exhibited antibacterial, antifungal, cytotoxic, anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory activity in our studies. Spongosorites halichondriodes (order Halichondrida, family Halichondriidae) is a predominant marine sponge collected from west coast of Mumbai, India. The sponge S. halichondriodes has shown presence of Octadecadienoic acid (Linoleic acid), ergostan tetraen-ol, dihydroxy cholanoic- methyl esters,C28 saturated and unsaturated esters like 3β, 4β, 7α, 12α-tetrahydroxy-5β-cholan-24-oic acid methyl ester, 7α, 12β- dihydroxy-5β- cholan24-oic acid methyl ester, novel isocoumarin citrinolactone A, a triterpenoid glycyrrhetinic acid as well as other unknown compounds such as nucleoside inosine. |
