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Nature Communications Sep 2019Anthropogenic CO emissions are causing ocean acidification, which can affect the physiology of marine organisms. Here we assess the possible effects of ocean...
Anthropogenic CO emissions are causing ocean acidification, which can affect the physiology of marine organisms. Here we assess the possible effects of ocean acidification on the metabolic potential of sponge symbionts, inferred by metagenomic analyses of the microbiomes of two sponge species sampled at a shallow volcanic CO seep and a nearby control reef. When comparing microbial functions between the seep and control sites, the microbiome of the sponge Stylissa flabelliformis (which is more abundant at the control site) exhibits at the seep reduced potential for uptake of exogenous carbohydrates and amino acids, and for degradation of host-derived creatine, creatinine and taurine. The microbiome of Coelocarteria singaporensis (which is more abundant at the seep) exhibits reduced potential for carbohydrate import at the seep, but greater capacity for archaeal carbon fixation via the 3-hydroxypropionate/4-hydroxybutyrate pathway, as well as archaeal and bacterial urea production and ammonia assimilation from arginine and creatine catabolism. Together these metabolic features might contribute to enhanced tolerance of the sponge symbionts, and possibly their host, to ocean acidification.
Topics: Acids; Animals; Carbon; Carbon Cycle; Carbon Dioxide; Carbonic Anhydrases; Genes, Bacterial; Metabolic Networks and Pathways; Microbiota; Nitrogen; Oceans and Seas; Porifera; Sulfur
PubMed: 31515490
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-12156-y -
Scientific Reports Dec 2022Discovered in 1819 in the tropical waters off Singapore, the magnificent Neptune's cup sponge Cliona patera (Hardwicke, 1820) was harvested for museums and collectors...
Discovered in 1819 in the tropical waters off Singapore, the magnificent Neptune's cup sponge Cliona patera (Hardwicke, 1820) was harvested for museums and collectors until it was presumed extinct worldwide for over a century since 1907. Recently in 2011, seven living individuals were rediscovered in Singapore with six relocated to a marine protected area in an effort to better monitor and protect the population, as well as to enhance external fertilisation success. To determine genetic diversity within the population, we sequenced the complete mitochondrial genomes and nuclear ribosomal DNA of these six individuals and found extremely limited variability in their genes. The low genetic diversity of this rediscovered population is confirmed by comparisons with close relatives of C. patera and could compromise the population's ability to recover from environmental and anthropogenic pressures associated with the highly urbanised coastlines of Singapore. This lack of resilience is compounded by severe predation which has been shrinking sponge sizes by up to 5.6% every month. Recovery of this highly endangered population may require ex situ approaches and crossbreeding with other populations, which are also rare.
Topics: Animals; Predatory Behavior; Porifera; Base Sequence; DNA, Ribosomal; Genetic Variation
PubMed: 36577798
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-26970-w -
Cells Apr 2024Microtubules are an indispensable component of all eukaryotic cells due to their role in mitotic spindle formation, yet their organization and number can vary greatly in...
Microtubules are an indispensable component of all eukaryotic cells due to their role in mitotic spindle formation, yet their organization and number can vary greatly in the interphase. The last common ancestor of all eukaryotes already had microtubules and microtubule motor proteins moving along them. Sponges are traditionally regarded as the oldest animal phylum. Their body does not have a clear differentiation into tissues, but it contains several distinguishable cell types. The choanocytes stand out among them and are responsible for creating a flow of water with their flagella and increasing the filtering and feeding efficiency of the sponge. Choanocyte flagella contain microtubules, but thus far, observing a developed system of cytoplasmic microtubules in non-flagellated interphase sponge cells has been mostly unsuccessful. In this work, we combine transcriptomic analysis, immunofluorescence, and electron microscopy with time-lapse recording to demonstrate that microtubules appear in the cytoplasm of sponge cells only when transdifferentiation processes are activated. We conclude that dynamic cytoplasmic microtubules in the cells of sponges are not a persistent but rather a transient structure, associated with cellular plasticity.
Topics: Microtubules; Animals; Interphase; Cell Differentiation; Porifera
PubMed: 38727272
DOI: 10.3390/cells13090736 -
Journal of Natural Products Mar 2023Tuberculosis (TB) is a dreadful infectious disease and a leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide, second in 2020 only to severe acute respiratory syndrome 2...
Tuberculosis (TB) is a dreadful infectious disease and a leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide, second in 2020 only to severe acute respiratory syndrome 2 (SARS-Cov-2). With limited therapeutic options available and a rise in multidrug-resistant tuberculosis cases, it is critical to develop antibiotic drugs that display novel mechanisms of action. Bioactivity-guided fractionation employing an Alamar blue assay for strain H37Rv led to the isolation of duryne () from a marine sponge sp. sampled in the Solomon Islands. Additionally, five new strongylophorine meroditerpene analogues (-) along with six known strongylophorines (-) were isolated from the bioactive fraction and characterized using MS and NMR spectroscopy, although only exhibited antitubercular activity.
Topics: Animals; Petrosia; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; Porifera; Antitubercular Agents; Mycobacterium tuberculosis; Microbial Sensitivity Tests
PubMed: 36881908
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.2c01003 -
Nature Communications Jun 2016Sponges (phylum Porifera) are early-diverging metazoa renowned for establishing complex microbial symbioses. Here we present a global Porifera microbiome survey, set out...
Sponges (phylum Porifera) are early-diverging metazoa renowned for establishing complex microbial symbioses. Here we present a global Porifera microbiome survey, set out to establish the ecological and evolutionary drivers of these host-microbe interactions. We show that sponges are a reservoir of exceptional microbial diversity and major contributors to the total microbial diversity of the world's oceans. Little commonality in species composition or structure is evident across the phylum, although symbiont communities are characterized by specialists and generalists rather than opportunists. Core sponge microbiomes are stable and characterized by generalist symbionts exhibiting amensal and/or commensal interactions. Symbionts that are phylogenetically unique to sponges do not disproportionally contribute to the core microbiome, and host phylogeny impacts complexity rather than composition of the symbiont community. Our findings support a model of independent assembly and evolution in symbiont communities across the entire host phylum, with convergent forces resulting in analogous community organization and interactions.
Topics: Animals; Bayes Theorem; Biodiversity; Biological Coevolution; Ecosystem; Microbial Consortia; Microbiota; Phylogeny; Porifera; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S; Symbiosis
PubMed: 27306690
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms11870 -
Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) Feb 2020Marine sponges are well known as rich sources of biologically natural products. Growing evidence indicates that sponges harbor a wealth of microorganisms in their... (Review)
Review
Marine sponges are well known as rich sources of biologically natural products. Growing evidence indicates that sponges harbor a wealth of microorganisms in their bodies, which are likely to be the true producers of bioactive secondary metabolites. In order to promote the study of natural product chemistry and explore the relationship between microorganisms and their sponge hosts, in this review, we give a comprehensive overview of the structures, sources, and activities of the 774 new marine natural products from sponge-derived microorganisms described over the last two decades from 1998 to 2017.
Topics: Animals; Aquatic Organisms; Bacteria; Biological Products; Porifera
PubMed: 32075151
DOI: 10.3390/molecules25040853 -
Nature Communications Mar 2019Microbes form complex communities that perform critical roles for the integrity of their environment or the well-being of their hosts. Controlling these microbial...
Microbes form complex communities that perform critical roles for the integrity of their environment or the well-being of their hosts. Controlling these microbial communities can help us restore natural ecosystems and maintain healthy human microbiota. However, the lack of an efficient and systematic control framework has limited our ability to manipulate these microbial communities. Here we fill this gap by developing a control framework based on the new notion of structural accessibility. Our framework uses the ecological network of the community to identify minimum sets of its driver species, manipulation of which allows controlling the whole community. We numerically validate our control framework on large communities, and then we demonstrate its application for controlling the gut microbiota of gnotobiotic mice infected with Clostridium difficile and the core microbiota of the sea sponge Ircinia oros. Our results provide a systematic pipeline to efficiently drive complex microbial communities towards desired states.
Topics: Animals; Clostridioides difficile; Ecosystem; Gastrointestinal Microbiome; Germ-Free Life; Host Microbial Interactions; Mice; Models, Biological; Porifera
PubMed: 30837457
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-08890-y -
International Journal of Molecular... Jan 2023Continuing chemical investigation of the Red Sea sponge sp. led to the isolation of four new 3,4--3,19-dinorspongian diterpenoid lactones, secodinorspongins A-D (-),...
Continuing chemical investigation of the Red Sea sponge sp. led to the isolation of four new 3,4--3,19-dinorspongian diterpenoid lactones, secodinorspongins A-D (-), along with a classical spongian diterpenoid lactone, sponginolide (). The chemical structures, including the absolute configurations of these compounds, were elucidated using the extensive spectroscopic study composed of 1D and 2D NMR data analyses, and a comparison between calculated-electronic-circular-dichroism (ECD) and experimental-circular-dichroism (CD) spectra. A plausible biosynthetic pathway of - was also proposed. Furthermore, the cytotoxicity, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory activities of - were evaluated. Compound was found to exhibit inhibitory activity against the growth of (), and and exhibited suppression of superoxide-anion generation and elastase release in fMLF/CB-induced human neutrophils.
Topics: Animals; Humans; Lactones; Staphylococcus aureus; Molecular Structure; Porifera; Diterpenes
PubMed: 36674768
DOI: 10.3390/ijms24021252 -
Applied and Environmental Microbiology Nov 2019In deep-sea hydrothermal vent environments, sulfur-oxidizing bacteria belonging to the clade SUP05 are crucial symbionts of invertebrate animals. Marine viruses, as the...
In deep-sea hydrothermal vent environments, sulfur-oxidizing bacteria belonging to the clade SUP05 are crucial symbionts of invertebrate animals. Marine viruses, as the most abundant biological entities in the ocean, play essential roles in regulating the sulfur metabolism of the SUP05 bacteria. To date, vent sponge-associated SUP05 and their phages have not been well documented. The current study analyzed microbiomes of Haplosclerida sponges from hydrothermal vents in the Okinawa Trough and recovered the dominant SUP05 genome, designated VS-SUP05. Phylogenetic analysis showed that VS-SUP05 was closely related to endosymbiotic SUP05 strains from mussels living in deep-sea hydrothermal vent fields. Homology and metabolic pathway comparisons against free-living and symbiotic SUP05 strains revealed that the VS-SUP05 genome shared many features with the deep-sea mussel symbionts. Supporting a potentially symbiotic lifestyle, the VS-SUP05 genome contained genes involved in the synthesis of essential amino acids and cofactors that are desired by the host. Analysis of sponge-associated viral sequences revealed putative VS-SUP05 phages, all of which were double-stranded viruses belonging to the families , , , and Among the phage sequences, one contig contained metabolic genes (, , and ) involved in iron-sulfur cluster formation. Interestingly, genome sequence comparison revealed horizontal transfer of the gene among phages, VS-SUP05, and other symbiotic SUP05 strains, indicating an interaction between marine phages and SUP05 symbionts. Overall, our findings confirm the presence of SUP05 bacteria and their phages in sponges from deep-sea vents and imply a beneficial interaction that allows adaptation of the host sponge to the hydrothermal vent environment. Chemosynthetic SUP05 bacteria dominate the microbial communities of deep-sea hydrothermal vents around the world, SUP05 bacteria utilize reduced chemical compounds in vent fluids and commonly form symbioses with invertebrate organisms. This symbiotic relationship could be key to adapting to such unique and extreme environments. Viruses are the most abundant biological entities on the planet and have been identified in hydrothermal vent environments. However, their interactions with the symbiotic microbes of the SUP05 clade, along with their role in the symbiotic system, remain unclear. Here, using metagenomic sequence-based analyses, we determined that bacteriophages may support metabolism in SUP05 bacteria and play a role in the sponge-associated symbiosis system in hydrothermal vent environments.
Topics: Animals; Bacteriophages; Genome, Bacterial; Hydrothermal Vents; Metabolic Networks and Pathways; Metagenomics; Microbiota; Oxidation-Reduction; Phylogeny; Porifera; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S; Sulfur; Sulfur-Reducing Bacteria; Symbiosis
PubMed: 31492669
DOI: 10.1128/AEM.00992-19 -
Chemical & Pharmaceutical Bulletin Sep 2017Extracts of the sponge Hyattella aff. intestinalis showed moderate inhibition against adenovirus. Chromatographic separation of the extracts followed by analysis of...
Extracts of the sponge Hyattella aff. intestinalis showed moderate inhibition against adenovirus. Chromatographic separation of the extracts followed by analysis of spectroscopic data allowed us to elucidate the structures of three new metabolites as 2α-hydroxyspongia-13(16),14-diene-3-one (4), 3β-hydroxyspongia-13(16),14-diene-2-one (7), and 2α,3α-diacetoxy-17,19-dihydroxyspongia-13(16),14-diene (8) and to identify six known ones 1-3, 5, 6 and 9. Among the molecules, compounds 1 and 3 showed antiviral activity at IC 17.0 and 52.0 µM.
Topics: Adenoviridae; Animals; Antiviral Agents; Cell Line, Tumor; Cell Survival; Diterpenes; Inhibitory Concentration 50; Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; Molecular Conformation; Porifera; Rats
PubMed: 28652548
DOI: 10.1248/cpb.c17-00297