Marine sponge compounds with antiplasmodial properties: Focus on in vitro study against Plasmodium falciparum

Abstract

Malaria continues to be a major cause of morbidity and mortality in many tropical countries. The lack of progress in drug discovery and the spread of drug resistance become the reason behind this. Porifera (sponges) is a potential source of novel bioactive compounds to provide future drugs against malaria. In this review, we summarized 243 isolated molecules belonging to 35 different genera that active against Plasmodium falciparum from published paper until March 2019. The molecules were classified into potent, good, moderate, low, and inactive based on their IC50, and among observed bioactive metabolites, there were 57 marine sponge molecules reported to act as potent antiplasmodium against various strains of P. falciparum including drug resistance and nondrug resistance. Table 2 represents the list of isolated compounds with "potent" antimalarial activity. The class of the listed compounds includes manzamine alkaloid, guanidine alkaloids, bispyrroloiminoquinone alkaloids, pyrroloiminoquinone alkaloids, ingamine alkaloids, bromotyrosine alkaloids, sesquiterpenoids, diterpene formamides, aminoimidazole, β-galactosylceramides, β-lactam, meroterpene, trisoxazole macrolides, peroxides, thiazine alkaloids, and sterols. With this up-to-date review, we attempt to present new perspectives for the rational discovery of novel sponge metabolites that can be used as lead compounds in antimalarial drug development.