Chronic inflammation is believed to play crucial roles in the pathogenesis of various diseases. Several types of drugs are used to treat inflammatory disorders, but they cause adverse side effects. Natural products are alternatives to these drugs which offer hope for discovery of bioactive lead compounds that may be developed into drugs for treatment of inflammatory disorders. The biological and chemical diversity of marine habitats constitutes a sizeable reservoir of novel compounds. Some of them, like sesquiterpenoids, diterpenes, steroids, polysaccharides, alkaloids, fatty acids, proteins, and other chemical compounds, isolated from marine organisms are found to exhibit anti-inflammatory activity. This review reports some recent (2011-2015) investigations and examples of marine natural products and their synthetic derivatives with anti-inflammatory activity. It also highlights those compounds that are currently undergoing preclinical or clinical evaluation.
Keywords: Anti-inflammatory activity; Clinical trials; Marine natural products.