Studies on Chemical Constituents of Three Marine Sponges, Siphonochalina siphonella in Egypt and Arenosclera sp. and Gelliodes sp. in Vietnam

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the world. According to the 2018 reports, one in six people worldwide is reported to die as a result of cancer. The discovery of anticancer drugs has been utilized extensively, but there has been no report on excellent selective activity in cancer cells. The discovery of bioactive substances from marine sponges has been the limelight in the pharmaceutical field over the past decade owing to the production of many bioactive compounds from the sponges to protect themselves against the environment. On top of that, marine sponges also produced cytotoxic compounds such as terpenoids, alkaloids, steroids, and peptides which suggests that marine sponges have high potential in the development of anticancer drugs. Thus, this study aimed to obtain new cytotoxic compounds from S. siphonella in Egypt and Arenoscelra sp. and Gelliodes sp. in Vietnam, and further investigation of the extract from these marine sponges led to isolation of ten new compounds and 21 known compounds. Chapter 1 will discuss about the isolation and structure elucidation of eight new polyacetylene derivatives from S. siphonella and their cytotoxic activities. The isolation and structural elucidation of one new polybrominated iododiphenyl ether from Arenosoclea sp. as well as cytotoxic activities of the isolated compounds will be reported in chapter 2. Finally, isolation and structure elucidation of new compounds from the marine sponge Gelliodes sp. and their cytotoxic activities will be discussed in chapter 3.