Covering: up to early 2016

Marine sponges are widely known as a rich source of natural products, especially of polyketide origin, with a wealth of chemical diversity. Within this vast collection, peroxide and peroxide-derived secondary metabolites have attracted significant interest in the fields of natural product isolation and chemical synthesis for their structural distinction and promising in vitro antimicrobial and anticancer properties. In this review, peroxide and peroxide-derived polyketide metabolites isolated from marine sponges in the past 35 years are summarised. Efforts toward their synthesis are detailed with a focus on methods that utilise or attempt to elucidate the complex biosynthetic interrelationships of these compounds beyond enzymatic polyketide synthesis. Recent isolations, advances in synthetic methodology and theories of biogenesis are highlighted and critically evaluated.