Bioactive mandalarpyrones, their derivatives and further novel secondary metabolites from marine and terrestrial bacteria

For centuries, drugs were composed of herbs, animal products, and inorganic materials and completely of natural origin. The importance of natural products in drug discovery is now well recognized. As much as 75% of drugs in current cancer treatment and drugs, which target infectious diseases as well as other indications, have been directly or indirectly contributed by natural products.[2] Currently, there is a broader attention towards pharmacologically active natural products, be they from plants, microorganisms, or animals, in the continued search for new drugs, especially for disease states beyond our present range of drugs. The most widely used medicines in the world today are plant medicines. Almost eighty-five percent (85%) of the world's population uses herbs as their main medicines. Clinical, pharmacological, and chemical studies of these traditional medicines are being performed. Natural drugs derived from microorganisms have a much shorter history. Their major impact on medicine goes back only about 60 years after the introduction of the antibacterial metabolite “penicillin (1)” by Fleming in 1928. In the early 1940s, Chain, Florey, and co-workers carried out re-isolation and clinical studies of penicillin and then synthetic penicillins became commercialized and revolutionized drug discovery research. […]