Sources and biological activities of marine sulfated steroids

Marine environment is rich in structurally unique molecules and can be an inspiring source of novel drugs. Currently, six marine-derived drugs are in the market with FDA approval and several more are in the clinical pipeline. Structurally diverse and complex secondary metabolites have been isolated from the marine world and these include sulfated steroids. Biological activities of nearly 150 marine sulfated steroids reported from 1978 to 2017 are compiled and described, namely antimicrobial, antitumor, cardiovascular and antifouling activities. Structure–activity relationship for each activity is discussed. © 2018 Society for Endocrinology. This work was supported through national funds provided by FCT/MCTES – Foundation for Science and Technology from the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education (PIDDAC) and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the COMPETE – Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade (POFC) programme, under the projects PTDC/ MAR-BIO/4694/2014 (reference POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016790; Project 3599 PPCDT – Promover a Produção Científica e Desenvolvimento Tecnológico e a Constituição de Redes Temáticas) and PTDC/AAG-TEC/0739/2014 (reference POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016793; Project 9471 RIDTI – Reforçar a Investigação, o Desenvolvimento Tecnológico e a Inovação) in the framework of the programme PT2020. The author acknowledges the Strategic Funding UID/Multi/04423/2013 provided by FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), in the framework of the programme PT2020.