title: Marine microorganism-invertebrate assemblages: perspectives to solve the "supply problem" in the initial steps of drug discovery.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Biologia & CESAM, Universidade de Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, Aveiro 3810-193, Portugal. miguelcleal@ua.pt.
authors.forename: Miguel Costa
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Leal
authors.affiliation: 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. Christopher.Sheridan@umons.ac.be.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sheridan
authors.affiliation: Department of Aquaculture and Fisheries, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 338, 6700 AH Wageningen, The Netherlands. ronald.osinga@wur.nl.
authors.forename: Ronald
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Osinga
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Biologia & CESAM, Universidade de Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, Aveiro 3810-193, Portugal. rarosa@fc.ul.pt.
authors.forename: Gisela
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Dionísio
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Biologia & CESAM, Universidade de Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, Aveiro 3810-193, Portugal. ruimirandarocha@ua.pt.
authors.forename: Rui Jorge Miranda
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Rocha
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Biologia & CESAM, Universidade de Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, Aveiro 3810-193, Portugal. sbruna@sapo.pt.
authors.forename: Bruna
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Silva
authors.affiliation: Laboratório Marítimo da Guia, Centro de Oceanografia, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Nossa Senhora do Cabo, 939, Cascais 2750-374, Portugal. rarosa@fc.ul.pt.
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rosa
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Biologia & CESAM, Universidade de Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, Aveiro 3810-193, Portugal. rjcalado@ua.pt.
authors.forename: Ricardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Calado
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017756:Aquaculture; D001688:Biological Products; D003063:Cnidaria / Q000378:metabolism; D055808:Drug Discovery; D007448:Invertebrates / Q000378:metabolism*; D008386:Marine Biology; D008974:Mollusca / Q000378:metabolism; D011161:Porifera / Q000378:metabolism; D014871:Water Microbiology
chemical_list: D001688:Biological Products