Chemical diversities, biological activities and chemical synthesis of marine diphenyl ether and their derivatives

Abstract

Marine organisms produce several secondary metabolites that find applications in pharmacology and biological systems. Vast biodiversity and unique environmental conditions endowed with marine ecosystem provide marine organisms as a rich sources of various fascinating molecules. It is estimated that more than 33,000 secondary metabolites have been discovered from marine organisms and studied for their chemical and biological properties. Diaryl/diphenyl ethers are a class of compounds possessing interesting biological properties including antimicrobial, antifouling, cytotoxicity and anti-proliferative activities. They have been mainly isolated from marine sponges although they are also known from numerous other marine organisms such as algae, ascidians, mussels, fungi, bacteria and marine mammals. Although, their isolations of diphenyl ethers and their biological activities have been documented in several published articles, a review dedicated to this class of compounds is lacking so far. Therefore, we believe that a comprehensive review of marine diphenyl ethers is timely and necessary. This review describes diphenyl ethers isolated from various marine organisms detailing their chemical structures and reported biological activities. Further, the review also presents postulated biosynthetic pathway and synthetic aspects of selected marine diphenyl ethers reported in literature.