Marine metabolites and metal ion chelation

This chapter covers the unique ability of marine invertebrates to bioconcentrate transition metals by up to 8 orders of magnitude above background concentrations. A brief introduction deals with the bioinorganic principles of the subject matter and the natural concentrations of metals in the environment. Next, previous metal surveys of marine invertebrates and the potential reasons for hyperaccumulation are discussed, and this is followed by a section on previously isolated marine natural product-transition metal complexes. Studies on marine natural product complexation using physical methods are described in the context of their binding specificity and affinity. Many of these studies were conducted to try and discover potential functions for the marine natural product-transition metal complexes. Methodological aspects to discover new complexes of this type are discussed, especially hyphenated techniques utilizing elemental and molecular mass spectrometric methods. A final section proposes a rational way to uncover new marine natural product-transition metal complexes and potential methods to determine their function in nature.