Biotechnological Potential of Marine Natural Products (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION Tyrian purple (1), a brilliant purple dye documented in texts dating from about the 16th century B.C., was produced from the hypobrachial glands of marine gastropod mollusks of the superfamily Muricacea [1]. This was man's first large-scale marine biotechnological industry originating in Tyre, a Phoenician city. However, the application of marine natural products (MNPs) to industry started quite recently, because of man's limited access to marine resources during virtually all of recorded history. MNPs are potential sources of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, nutraceuticals, agrochemicals, and others. Their application to drugs has been explored since the early 1970s, but only a small number of MNPs have been applied to pharmaceuticals [2]. Recently, the increasing numbers of MNPs have been developed for nutraceuticals [3] and cosmetics [4]. It should be noted that many MNPs, especially toxins (e.g., tetrodotoxin) have been used as research tools (reagents) and contributed enormously to the progress of life science. Surprisingly, only nereistoxin isolated from a polychaete was applied to an agrochemical [5]. This article focuses on selective antitumor compounds that we isolated from Japanese marine invertebrates and their modes of action, as well as MNPs applicable to nontoxic antifoulants.