This work reviews the contributions of the corresponding author (M.M.M.P.) and her research group to Medicinal Chemistry concerning the isolation from plant and marine sources of xanthone derivatives as well as their synthesis, biological/pharmacological activities, formulation and analytical applications. Although her group activity has been spread over several chemical families with relevance in Medicinal Chemistry, the main focus of the investigation and research has been in the xanthone family. Xanthone derivatives have a variety of activities with great potential for therapeutic applications due to their versatile framework. The group has contributed with several libraries of xanthones derivatives, with a variety of activities such as antitumor, anticoagulant, antiplatelet, anti-inflammatory, antimalarial, antimicrobial, hepatoprotective, antioxidant, and multidrug resistance reversal effects. Besides therapeutic applications, our group has also developed xanthone derivatives with analytical applications as chiral selectors for liquid chromatography and for maritime application as antifouling agents for marine paints. Chemically, it has been challenging to afford green chemistry methods and achieve enantiomeric purity of chiral derivatives. In this review, the structures of the most significant compounds will be presented.

Siderophores are small molecules of organic nature, released by bacteria to chelate iron from the surrounding environment and subsequently incorporate it into the cytoplasm. In addition to iron, these secondary metabolites can complex with a wide variety of metals, which is why they are commonly studied in the environment. Heavy metals can be very toxic when present in large amounts on the planet, affecting public health and all living organisms. The pollution caused by these toxic metals is increasing, and therefore it is urgent to find practical, sustainable, and economical solutions for remediation. One of the strategies is siderophore-assisted bioremediation, an innovative and advantageous alternative for various environmental applications. This research highlights the various uses of siderophores and metallophores in the environment, underscoring their significance to ecosystems. The study delves into the utilization of siderophores in both marine and terrestrial settings, providing context for the different instances outlined in the existing literature and highlighting their relevance in each field. This research highlights the various uses of siderophores and metallophores in the environment, such as bioremediation, biocontrol of pathogens, and plant growth promotion, underscoring their significance in both marine and terrestrial ecosystems. The study delves into the structures and types of siderophores highlighting their singular characteristics for each application and methodologies used. Focusing on recent developments over the last two decades, the opportunities and challenges associated with siderophores and metallophores applications, in the environment were mapped to arm researchers in the fight against environmental pollution.

Xanthones are important O-heteroaromatic tricyclic molecules exhibiting a wide range of bioactivities and can represent a showcase to highlight the recent techniques and strategies in organic synthesis towards lead discovery and optimization. This review gives an insight into the recent literature disclosed to obtain the xanthone core, including the drug-like azaxanthones, isosteres of xanthones, by exploiting the optimization of well-known procedures as well as disruptive developed methodologies. With this review, it is expected to provide a useful chemical toolbox to synthetic medicinal chemistry focusing on these privileged structures, covering from 2012 to 2020, with some older examples of azaxanthones.

This review covers the isolation, structure elucidation, biological activities, biosynthetic pathways, and synthetic studies of the 77 fumiquinazolines and structurally related alkaloids described up to 2018.

Marine organisms exhibit some advantages as a renewable source of potential drugs, far beyond chemotherapics. Particularly, the number of marine natural products with antithrombotic activity has increased in the last few years, and reports show a wide diversity in scaffolds, beyond the polysaccharide framework. While there are several reviews highlighting the anticoagulant and antithrombotic activities of marine-derived sulfated polysaccharides, reports including other molecules are sparse. Therefore, the present paper provides an update of the recent progress in marine-derived sulfated polysaccharides and quotes other scaffolds that are being considered for investigation due to their antithrombotic effect.