Ascidians (class Ascidiacea) belong to the subphylum Urochordata (Tunicata) and are generally called as tunicates because the body is covered by tunic, a sack-like case, or sea squirts since they spurt water when disturbed.Nitrogenous secondary metabolites form more than 80% of new natural products obtained from ascidians and showed a wide variety of bioactivities.This review describes the structures and bioactivities of major classes of unique nitrogenous ascidian metabolites: cyclic peptides, in which aplidine is in the Phase II clinical trials, pyridoacridine alkaloids, β-carboline alkaloids, lamellarins and related pyrrole alkaloids, ecteinascidins (ETs, ET 743 completed the Phase III clinical trials), diterpene and steroidal alkaloids, and polysulfur alkaloids.
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Namikoshi et al. (2007) studied this question.
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