Bioactive secondary metabolites produced by sponge symbiont Entotheonella

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15H03112
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Biomolecular chemistry
• Research Institution: Hokkaido University
• Principal Investigator: WAKIMOTO Toshiyuki 北海道大学, 薬学研究院, 教授 (70363900)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): KURANAGA Takefumi 北海道大学, 大学院薬学研究院, 講師 (70625201) ; EGAMI Yoko 北海道大学, 大学院薬学研究院, 助教 (50758612)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 海綿動物 / 生合成遺伝子 / 生物活性物質

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Marine sponges are prolific sources of bioactive molecules as well as highly complex consortia, including significantly large populations of symbiotic bacteria. The symbiotic bacteria often cannot be cultured under normal laboratory conditions. To access the gene clusters responsible for the biosynthesis of sponge-derived bioactive natural products, homology-based screening of the sponge metagenome library has been implemented. We successfully obtained the biosynthetic gene clusters of cytotoxic compounds, calyculins isolated from the Japanese sponge Discodermia calyx by a metagenome mining approach. The single cell analysis revealed that all these gene clusters were encoded by the same filamentous bacterium, which was identified as Candidatus “Entotheonella sp.” based on the 16S rRNA sequence. In this study, we investigated new metabolites as well as other gene clusters responsible for the biosynthesis of bioactive peptides derived from Discodermia kiiensis and Theonella swinhoei.

Free Research Field

天然物化学