title: In situ natural product discovery via an artificial marine sponge.
abstract: There is continuing international interest in exploring and developing the therapeutic potential of marine-derived small molecules. Balancing the strategies for ocean based sampling of source organisms versus the potential to endanger fragile ecosystems poses a substantial challenge. In order to mitigate such environmental impacts, we have developed a deployable artificial sponge. This report provides details on its design followed by evidence that it faithfully recapitulates traditional natural product collection protocols. Retrieving this artificial sponge from a tropical ecosystem after deployment for 320 hours afforded three actin-targeting jasplakinolide depsipeptides that had been discovered two decades earlier using traditional sponge specimen collection and isolation procedures. The successful outcome achieved here could reinvigorate marine natural products research, by producing new environmentally innocuous sources of natural products and providing a means to probe the true biosynthetic origins of complex marine-derived scaffolds.
authors.affiliation: Xenobe Research Institute, San Diego, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: James J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: La Clair
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Steven T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Loveridge
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tenney
authors.affiliation: Lead Discovery and Rapid Structure Elucidation Group, Sequoia Sciences, Inc., St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: O'Neil-Johnson
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, College of Pharmacy, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States of America.
authors.forename: Eli
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Chapman
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Phillip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Crews
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001688:Biological Products / Q000737:chemistry; D032701:Biomimetics / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D047630:Depsipeptides / Q000737:chemistry; D055808:Drug Discovery; D017753:Ecosystem; D011161:Porifera / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D001688:Biological Products; D047630:Depsipeptides; C057531:jasplakinolide