Isolation of marine natural products

The world's oceans cover more than 70% of the earth's surface and containover 200,000 invertebrate and algal species (1). These organisms live in complexcommunities and in close association with other organisms both macro(e.g., algae, sponges, ascidians) and micro- (e.g., nonfilamentous bacteria, fungi,actmomycetes). Some organisms derive their chemistry from dietary sources, whileothers synthesize the compounds de novo. Some compounds may be produced byassociated microorganisms, while others may require an association between thehost and microorganism to produce the compounds. The chemistry of any particularspecimen can be affected by the habitat as well as by geographic and seasonalfactors (2). In fact, the true biogenetic origin of most marine natural productsremains a topic for debate within the marine natural products community.