Oceans can play a major role in supplying life-saving medicines to the world. Although considerable progress has been made in finding new medicines from marine sources, great efforts are still necessary to examine such molecules for clinical applications. Xyloketals are an important group of natural products with various powerful and prominent bioactivities such as inhibition of acetylcholine esterase, antioxidant activity, inhibition of L-calcium channels, radical-scavenging behavior, suppression of cell proliferation, reduction of neonatal hypoxic-ischemic brain injury, etc. This review describes the isolation and structural characterization of all xyloketal natural products giving major emphasis on their bioactivity.
Keywords: Bioactive molecules, natural products, xyloketals, marine compounds, drug development, acetylcholine.