Bioactive Natural Products from Marine and Terrestrial Sources: Isolation, Structural Diversity, and Biological Activity

Marine and terrestrial organisms—including soft corals, marine fungi, and plants—remain rich sources of structurally diverse secondary metabolites with significant biological activity. Advances in chromatographic separation, spectroscopic analysis, and high-resolution mass spectrometry continue to expand the discovery of terpenoids and related scaffolds. However, challenges remain in isolating minor or unstable metabolites, achieving unambiguous structural assignments, and generating reproducible bioactivity data that can support downstream pharmaceutical, agricultural, or aquaculture applications. Further integration of isolation chemistry, structural analysis, and biological evaluation is needed to clarify the relationship between metabolite structure, biological function, and applied potential.This Research Topic aims to advance the isolation, purification, and structural elucidation of natural products from marine and terrestrial sources, with particular emphasis on diterpenoids, sesquiterpenoids, and other terpenoid scaffolds. We encourage submissions that combine rigorous chemical characterization with bioactivity evaluation, chemotaxonomic analysis, or chemical ecology approaches to clarify how metabolite production relates to biological function.To gather further insights into the isolation and characterization of natural products from marine and terrestrial organisms, this Research Topic will focus on chemically well-characterized metabolites and appropriately validated biological activities. Studies focused solely on ethnopharmacological or traditional medicine claims without chemical isolation and characterization are outside the scope of this Research Topic. We welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:- Isolation, purification, and structural elucidation of diterpenoids, sesquiterpenoids, and other terpenoid scaffolds from marine and terrestrial sources- Novel extraction, separation, and purification methods for secondary metabolites- Structural and stereochemical characterization using NMR, mass spectrometry, X-ray crystallography, and computational methods- Chemotaxonomic and chemical ecology studies linking metabolite production to biological function- Antifungal, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and other bioactivities of newly isolated compounds- Applications of isolated natural products in pharmaceutical, agricultural, aquaculture, or related fields Topic editors: Chin-Soon Phan, Kazuki Tani Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/83964/bioactive-natural-products-from-marine-and-terrestrial-sources-isolation-structural-diversity-and-biological-activity