抄録
Biofouling is adverse growth of marine organisms on manmade submersible structures such as ships’ hulls and cause significant economic and environmental problems. As a fouling inhibitor, tributyltin (TBT) has been widely used for controlling the sessile organisms since the early 1960s. Unfortunately, serious pollution of the marine environment due to the deleterious effect of TBT prompted the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to call in 2008 for a ban on the use of tributyltin (TBT) on ships. Since marine invertebrates prevent settlement of other benthic marine organisms through the use of natural substances with antifouling properties without causing serious environmental problems, natural antifouling products with good antifouling properties but without biocidal properties have attracted considerable attention. Among these, 10-isocyano-4-cadinene and omaezallene show promise as lead compounds for the development of new environmentally friendly antifouling agents due to its potent antifouling activity against the cypris larvae of the barnacle Amphibalanus amphitrite and low toxicity. 10-Isocyano-4-cadinene, an isocyanosesquiterpene, was isolated from nudibranchs of the family Phyllidiidae. On the other hand, omaezallene is a bromoallene-containing C15-acetogenin isolated from the red alga Laurencia sp. Herein, we wish to describe our research on the isolations, structure elucidations, total syntheses, and evaluation of the antifouling activities of the natural products and their derivatives. The absolute configurations of the natural products were unambiguously established through our asymmetric total syntheses.
