Biosynthesis in marine sponges: the radiolabelling strikes back
2013
Genta-Jouve, Gregory | Thomas, Olivier P.
Biochemical pathways involved in the production of marine sponge secondary metabolites remain mostly unknown. The physicochemical characteristics of the marine environment and the complex structures encountered in marine sponges can explain the lack of results obtained in the biosynthetic studies on marine organisms. Despite significant structural differences, the question of the similarity between the terrestrial and marine biosynthetic pathways remains. To increase our level of knowledge on the sponge metabolic pathways, we developed an experimental protocol using a relatively simple model. Pyrrole imidazole alkaloids represent a very large and interesting family of sponge alkaloids found in many sponge species worldwide. Using oroidin as our target metabolite and the common Mediterranean sponge Axinella damicornis, we measured the incorporation of radiolabelled amino acids into secondary metabolites by “feeding” experiment. This in vivo protocol based on a highly sensitive radioactive detection allowed the identification of the origin of an entire sponge natural product skeleton for the first time.
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