Marine Microorganism-Invertebrate Assemblages: Perspectives to Solve the “Supply Problem” in the Initial Steps of Drug Discovery

Marine Drugs

Miguel Costa Leal²  Christopher Sheridan⁴  Ronald Osinga¹  Gisela Dionísio²  Rui Jorge Miranda Rocha²  Bruna Silva²  Rui Rosa³ 

[1] Department of Aquaculture and Fisheries, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 338, 6700 AH Wageningen, The Netherlands; E-Mail:;Departamento de Biologia & CESAM, Universidade de Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, Aveiro 3810-193, Portugal; E-Mails:;Laboratório Marítimo da Guia, Centro de Oceanografia, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Nossa Senhora do Cabo, 939, Cascais 2750-374, Portugal; E-Mail:;Biology of Marine Organisms and Biomimetics Laboratory, Research Institute for Biosciences, University of Mons, Pentagone 2B, 6 Avenue du Champ de Mars, Mons 7000, Belgium; E-Mail:

关键词: marine natural products;    aquaculture;    microbial symbionts;    marine invertebrates;    pharmaceuticals;   

DOI  :  10.3390/md12073929

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

The chemical diversity associated with marine natural products (MNP) is unanimously acknowledged as the “blue gold” in the urgent quest for new drugs. Consequently, a significant increase in the discovery of MNP published in the literature has been observed in the past decades, particularly from marine invertebrates. However, it remains unclear whether target metabolites originate from the marine invertebrates themselves or from their microbial symbionts. This issue underlines critical challenges associated with the lack of biomass required to supply the early stages of the drug discovery pipeline. The present review discusses potential solutions for such challenges, with particular emphasis on innovative approaches to culture invertebrate holobionts (microorganism-invertebrate assemblages) through in toto aquaculture, together with methods for the discovery and initial production of bioactive compounds from these microbial symbionts.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.