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Thursday, May 29, 2003 Seaweed Surprise: Marine Plant Uses Chemical Warfare to Fight Microbes Scientists have discovered that seaweeds defend themselves from specific pathogens with naturally occurring antibiotics. Scripps Institution of Oceanography / University of California, San Diego The finding helps explain why some seaweeds, sponges, and corals appear to avoid most infections by fungi and bacteria, according to a study published May 19 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study includes researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Varian Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif."Seaweeds live in constant contact with potentially dangerous microbes, and they have apparently evolved a chemical defense to help resist disease," said lead author Julia Kubanek, an assistant professor of biology and chemistry at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. "These plants have a really effective way of defending themselves." Few studies have addressed disease resistance in seaweeds, and seaweed diseases are little understood, except for those in species that are commercially important-for example, the seaweed used for sushi. By isolating a potent antifungal compound contained in the common seaweed species Lobophora variega, the researchers revealed an unusual chemical structure not seen before in plants.
The research-funded in part by the National Science Foundation-was conducted in collaboration with colleagues Paul Jensen and William Fenical of Scripps Institution, Paul Keifer of Varian Inc., and researchers M. Cameron Sullards and Dwight Collins of Georgia Tech. "Based on the antimicrobial activities we detected in a large survey of many different algal species, it is possible that antimicrobial chemical defenses are more common than previously believed and that L. variegata may be one of many species that uses natural antibiotics to defend against infection," Jensen said. Jensen devised a bioassay to measure the antimicrobial potential of L. variegata. He combined biological extracts from seaweed harvested in the Bahamas with a fungus or bacterium and monitored the sample to see if the microbes grew. Of the 51 samples tested, 46 exhibited extraordinarily potent antifungal activity that could be traced to exceedingly low concentrations of an antifungal compound in the seaweed. Suppressed growth of microbes in the samples suggests that a natural antimicrobial compound is at work, Kubanek explained. "We have discovered a new antibiotic with a complex chemical structure that structurally resembles two groups of macrolide antibiotics (i.e., those that kill fungi) - one found in marine sponges and the other in blue-green algae," Kubanek said. Because of the tiny available quantities of this new compound, researchers have not applied for a patent yet. The pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb and a San Diego biotechnology company, Nereus Pharmaceuticals Inc., are partners with Scripps and are collaborating on related ongoing research. Scientists still need to determine whether the seaweed is actually the original source of the antibiotic, Kubanek added. The antimicrobial compound could be the byproduct of symbiosis between the seaweed and an as yet unidentified microbe. If this is the case, it would be one of the rare examples of such a chemical defense for plants and animals, researchers reported. They believe that further investigations of chemically mediated interactions between marine microbes and larger organisms are likely to reveal new molecules and mechanisms that enable marine plants and animals to persist despite intense microbial challenges, the researchers wrote. "Ecologically driven studies, such as this one, which used...marine fungi in operationally simple assays, may be a promising strategy for uncovering novel natural products of commercial interest," the authors reported. # # # Scripps Institution of Oceanography on the web: http://scripps.ucsd.edu Scripps News on the web: http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu Scripps Centennial on the web: http://scripps100.ucsd.edu # # # Note to broadcast and cable producers: University of California, San Diego provides an on-campus satellite uplink facility for live or pre-recorded television interviews. Please phone or e-mail the media contact listed above to arrange an interview. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, at University of California, San Diego, is one of the oldest, largest and most important centers for global science research and education in the world. The National Research Council has ranked Scripps first in faculty quality among oceanography programs nationwide Now in its second century of discovery, the scientific scope of the institution has grown to include biological, physical, chemical, geological, geophysical and atmospheric studies of the earth as a system. Hundreds of research programs covering a wide range of scientific areas are under way today in 65 countries. The institution has a staff of about 1,300, and annual expenditures of approximately $155 million from federal, state and private sources. Scripps operates one of the largest U.S. academic fleets with four oceanographic research ships and one research platform for worldwide exploration. |
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