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Marine Drugs Aug 2014Marine sponges belonging to the phylum Porifera (Metazoa), evolutionarily the oldest animals are the single best source of marine natural products. The present review... (Review)
Review
Marine sponges belonging to the phylum Porifera (Metazoa), evolutionarily the oldest animals are the single best source of marine natural products. The present review presents a comprehensive overview of the source, taxonomy, country of origin or geographical position, chemical class, and biological activity of sponge-derived new natural products discovered between 2001 and 2010. The data has been analyzed with a view to gaining an outlook on the future trends and opportunities in the search for new compounds and their sources from marine sponges.
Topics: Animals; Biological Factors; Biological Products; Marine Biology; Porifera
PubMed: 25196730
DOI: 10.3390/md12084539 -
Nature Communications Jul 2019Most sponges have biomineralized spicules. Molecular clocks indicate sponge classes diverged in the Cryogenian, but the oldest spicules are Cambrian in age. Therefore,...
Most sponges have biomineralized spicules. Molecular clocks indicate sponge classes diverged in the Cryogenian, but the oldest spicules are Cambrian in age. Therefore, sponges either evolved spiculogenesis long after their divergences or Precambrian spicules were not amenable to fossilization. The former hypothesis predicts independent origins of spicules among sponge classes and presence of transitional forms with weakly biomineralized spicules, but this prediction has not been tested using paleontological data. Here, we report an early Cambrian sponge that, like several other early Paleozoic sponges, had weakly biomineralized and hexactine-based siliceous spicules with large axial filaments and high organic proportions. This material, along with Ediacaran microfossils containing putative non-biomineralized axial filaments, suggests that Precambrian sponges may have had weakly biomineralized spicules or lacked them altogether, hence their poor record. This work provides a new search image for Precambrian sponge fossils, which are critical to resolving the origin of sponge spiculogenesis and biomineralization.
Topics: Animals; Biomineralization; Fossils; Paleontology; Phylogeny; Porifera; Silicon Dioxide
PubMed: 31350398
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11297-4 -
Current Biology : CB Feb 2005
Review
Topics: Animals; Biological Evolution; Genome; Porifera
PubMed: 15723776
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2005.02.005 -
Marine Drugs Mar 2022In the last decades, it has been demonstrated that marine organisms are a substantial source of bioactive compounds with possible biotechnological applications. Marine... (Review)
Review
In the last decades, it has been demonstrated that marine organisms are a substantial source of bioactive compounds with possible biotechnological applications. Marine sponges, in particular those belonging to the class of Demospongiae, have been considered among the most interesting invertebrates for their biotechnological potential. In this review, particular attention is devoted to natural compounds/extracts isolated from Demospongiae and their associated microorganisms with important biological activities for pharmacological applications such as antiviral, anticancer, antifouling, antimicrobial, antiplasmodial, antifungal and antioxidant. The data here presented show that this class of sponges is an exciting source of compounds, which are worth developing into new drugs, such as avarol, a hydroquinone isolated from the marine sponge , which is used as an antitumor, antimicrobial and antiviral drug.
Topics: Animals; Anti-Bacterial Agents; Anti-Infective Agents; Aquatic Organisms; Biological Products; Biotechnology; Porifera
PubMed: 35447918
DOI: 10.3390/md20040244 -
Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) Feb 2021Marine sponges are one of the prolific producers of bioactive natural products with therapeutic potential. As an important subgenus of , sponges are mainly distributed... (Review)
Review
Marine sponges are one of the prolific producers of bioactive natural products with therapeutic potential. As an important subgenus of , sponges are mainly distributed in the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic area, and had been chemically investigated for over four decades. By an extensive literature search, this review first makes a comprehensive summary of all natural products from sponges and their endozoic microbes, as well as biological properties. Perspectives on strengthening the chemical study of sponges for new drug-lead discovery are provided in this work.
Topics: Animals; Aquatic Organisms; Biological Products; Models, Molecular; Porifera
PubMed: 33669688
DOI: 10.3390/molecules26041097 -
PeerJ 2022Although marine sponges are known for their antimicrobial, antifungal and cytotoxic activity, very few studies have been carried out on endemic species of Martinique....
Although marine sponges are known for their antimicrobial, antifungal and cytotoxic activity, very few studies have been carried out on endemic species of Martinique. Martinique is part of the Agoa Sanctuary, a marine protected area that includes the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of the French Caribbean islands, making it an abundant source of marine species. To highlight the potential of this area for the discovery of marine biomolecules with antipathogenic and antitumor activities, we tested the aqueous and ethanolic extracts of sponge species , and . Five bacterial strains: (CIP 78.3), (CIP 54.127), (CIP A22), (CIP 67.8) and (CIP 76125) were evaluated, as well as four tumor cell lines: breast cancer (MDA-MB231), glioblastoma (RES259) and leukemia (MOLM14 and HL-60). Antimicrobial activity was evaluated using the disc diffusion technique by determining the minimum inhibitory and minimum bactericidal concentrations. Tumor cytotoxic activity was determined by defining the minimum concentration of extracts that would inhibit cell growth. Ethanolic extracts of were bactericidal for and strains, as well as strongly cytotoxic (IC < 20 µg/mL) on all cancer cell lines. also showed strong cytotoxic activity on cell lines but no antimicrobial activity. These results are innovative for this species on these bacterial lines, highlighting the potential of sponge extracts from this area as bioactive compounds sources.
Topics: Animals; Agelas; Porifera; Anti-Infective Agents; Antineoplastic Agents; West Indies; Staphylococcus aureus; Cell Line, Tumor
PubMed: 36172499
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.13955 -
Trends in Ecology & Evolution May 2015Animal evolution is often presented as a march toward complexity, with different living animal groups each representing grades of organization that arose through the... (Review)
Review
Animal evolution is often presented as a march toward complexity, with different living animal groups each representing grades of organization that arose through the progressive acquisition of complex traits. There are now many reasons to reject this classical hypothesis. Not only is it incompatible with recent phylogenetic analyses, but it is also an artifact of 'hidden biology', that is, blind spots to complex traits in non-model species. A new hypothesis of animal evolution, where many complex traits have been repeatedly gained and lost, is emerging. As we discuss here, key details of this new model hinge on a better understanding of the Porifera and Ctenophora, which have each been hypothesized to be sister to all other animals, but are poorly studied and often misrepresented.
Topics: Animals; Biological Evolution; Ctenophora; Phylogeny; Porifera
PubMed: 25840473
DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2015.03.003 -
Nature Jun 2023A central question in evolutionary biology is whether sponges or ctenophores (comb jellies) are the sister group to all other animals. These alternative phylogenetic...
A central question in evolutionary biology is whether sponges or ctenophores (comb jellies) are the sister group to all other animals. These alternative phylogenetic hypotheses imply different scenarios for the evolution of complex neural systems and other animal-specific traits. Conventional phylogenetic approaches based on morphological characters and increasingly extensive gene sequence collections have not been able to definitively answer this question. Here we develop chromosome-scale gene linkage, also known as synteny, as a phylogenetic character for resolving this question. We report new chromosome-scale genomes for a ctenophore and two marine sponges, and for three unicellular relatives of animals (a choanoflagellate, a filasterean amoeba and an ichthyosporean) that serve as outgroups for phylogenetic analysis. We find ancient syntenies that are conserved between animals and their close unicellular relatives. Ctenophores and unicellular eukaryotes share ancestral metazoan patterns, whereas sponges, bilaterians, and cnidarians share derived chromosomal rearrangements. Conserved syntenic characters unite sponges with bilaterians, cnidarians, and placozoans in a monophyletic clade to the exclusion of ctenophores, placing ctenophores as the sister group to all other animals. The patterns of synteny shared by sponges, bilaterians, and cnidarians are the result of rare and irreversible chromosome fusion-and-mixing events that provide robust and unambiguous phylogenetic support for the ctenophore-sister hypothesis. These findings provide a new framework for resolving deep, recalcitrant phylogenetic problems and have implications for our understanding of animal evolution.
Topics: Animals; Ctenophora; Genome; Phylogeny; Porifera; Synteny
PubMed: 37198475
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-05936-6 -
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal... Feb 2017Evolving multicellularity is easy, especially in phototrophs and osmotrophs whose multicells feed like unicells. Evolving animals was much harder and unique; probably... (Review)
Review
Evolving multicellularity is easy, especially in phototrophs and osmotrophs whose multicells feed like unicells. Evolving animals was much harder and unique; probably only one pathway via benthic 'zoophytes' with pelagic ciliated larvae allowed trophic continuity from phagocytic protozoa to gut-endowed animals. Choanoflagellate protozoa produced sponges. Converting sponge flask cells mediating larval settling to synaptically controlled nematocysts arguably made Cnidaria. I replace Haeckel's gastraea theory by a sponge/coelenterate/bilaterian pathway: Placozoa, hydrozoan diploblasty and ctenophores were secondary; stem anthozoan developmental mutations arguably independently generated coelomate bilateria and ctenophores. I emphasize animal origin's conceptual aspects (selective, developmental) related to feeding modes, cell structure, phylogeny of related protozoa, sequence evidence, ecology and palaeontology. Epithelia and connective tissue could evolve only by compensating for dramatically lower feeding efficiency that differentiation into non-choanocytes entails. Consequentially, larger bodies enabled filtering more water for bacterial food and harbouring photosynthetic bacteria, together adding more food than cell differentiation sacrificed. A hypothetical presponge of sessile triploblastic sheets (connective tissue sandwiched between two choanocyte epithelia) evolved oogamy through selection for larger dispersive ciliated larvae to accelerate benthic trophic competence and overgrowing protozoan competitors. Extinct Vendozoa might be elaborations of this organismal grade with choanocyte-bearing epithelia, before poriferan water channels and cnidarian gut/nematocysts/synapses evolved.This article is part of the themed issue 'Evo-devo in the genomics era, and the origins of morphological diversity'.
Topics: Animals; Biological Evolution; Choanoflagellata; Evolution, Molecular; Invertebrates; Neurogenesis; Porifera
PubMed: 27994119
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0476 -
Developmental Biology Nov 2017A complex genetic repertoire underlies the apparently simple body plan of sponges. Among the genes present in poriferans are those fundamental to the sensory and nervous... (Review)
Review
A complex genetic repertoire underlies the apparently simple body plan of sponges. Among the genes present in poriferans are those fundamental to the sensory and nervous systems of other animals. Sponges are dynamic and sensitive animals and it is intuitive to link these genes to behaviour. The proposal that ctenophores are the earliest diverging metazoan has led to the question of whether sponges possess a 'pre-nervous' system or have undergone nervous system loss. Both lines of thought generally assume that the last common ancestor of sponges and eumetazoans possessed the genetic modules that underlie sensory abilities. By corollary extant sponges may possess a sensory cell homologous to one present in the last common ancestor, a hypothesis that has been studied by gene expression. We have performed a meta-analysis of all gene expression studies published to date to explore whether gene expression is indicative of a feature's sensory function. In sponges we find that eumetazoan sensory-neural markers are not particularly expressed in structures with known sensory functions. Instead it is common for these genes to be expressed in cells with no known or uncharacterized sensory function. Indeed, many sensory-neural markers so far studied are expressed during development, perhaps because many are transcription factors. This suggests that the genetic signal of a sponge sensory cell is dissimilar enough to be unrecognizable when compared to a bilaterian sensory or neural cell. It is possible that sensory-neural markers have as yet unknown functions in sponge cells, such as assembling an immunological synapse in the larval globular cell. Furthermore, the expression of sensory-neural markers in non-sensory cells, such as adult and larval epithelial cells, suggest that these cells may have uncharacterized sensory functions. While this does not rule out the co-option of ancestral sensory modules in later evolving groups, a distinct genetic foundation may underlie the sponge sensory system.
Topics: Animals; Evolution, Molecular; Gene Expression; Phylogeny; Porifera; Sensation; Sensory Receptor Cells; Signal Transduction
PubMed: 28647138
DOI: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2017.06.012