Tuberculosis (TB) remains a public health crisis, requiring the urgent identification of new anti-mycobacterial drugs. We screened several organic and aqueous marine invertebrate extracts for their in vitro inhibitory activity against the causative organism, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Here, we report the results obtained for 54 marine invertebrate extracts. The chemical components of two of the extracts were dereplicated, using 1H NMR and HR-LCMS with GNPS molecular networking, and these extracts were further subjected to an activity-guided isolation process to purify the bioactive components. Hyrtios reticulatus yielded heteronemin 1 and Jaspis splendens was found to produce the bengamide class of compounds, of which bengamides P 2 and Q 3 were isolated, while a new derivative, bengamide S 5, was putatively identified and its structure predicted, based on the similarity of its MS/MS fragmentation pattern to those of other bengamides. The isolated bioactive metabolites and semi-pure fractions exhibited M. tuberculosis growth inhibitory activity, in the range <0.24 to 62.50 µg/mL. This study establishes the bengamides as potent antitubercular compounds, with the first report of whole-cell antitubercular activity of bengamides P 2 and Q 3.
Keywords: antitubercular; bengamides; drug discovery; heteronemin; marine natural product; molecular networking.