Marine Microbiome as a Source of Antimalarials

It is important to discover novel antimalarial pharmacophores because of the widespread emergence of Plasmodium falciparum isolates resistant to the available drugs. Secondary metabolites derived from microbes associated with marine invertebrates are a valuable resource for the discovery of novel drug leads. However, the potential of marine microbes as a source of antimalarials has not been explored. We investigated the promise of marine microorganisms for the production of antimalarial activities by testing 2365 diverse microbial extracts using phenotypic screening of a multidrug resistant chloroquine resistant P. falciparum strain. We conducted counter screening against mammalian cells for the 317 active extracts that exhibited more than 70% inhibition at 1 mu g/mL. The screen identified 17 potent bioactive leads from a broad range of taxa. Our results establish that the marine microbiome is a rich source of antiplasmodial compounds that warrants in depth exploration.