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Biomedical Importance of Sponges

Biomedical Importance of Sponges. Aimee, Max, Katie, Sarah, Lawrence.

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Biomedical Importance of Sponges

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  1. Biomedical Importance of Sponges Aimee, Max, Katie, Sarah, Lawrence

  2. “Marine sponges are currently one of the richest sources of pharmacologically active compounds found in the marine environment. These bioactive molecules are often secondary metabolites, whose main function is to enable and/or modulate cellular communication and defense. They are usually produced by functional enzyme clusters in sponges and/or their associated symbiotic microorganisms” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2992996/

  3. Sponges’ Useful Chemistry • Because sponges are thought to be sessile creatures, it is believed that they have developed chemical defenses to ward off predators. • Scientists are using this chemical substance to study and develop the same chemistry to fight diseases and cancer found in humans. • Sponges create different chemicals at different times which can lead to different development of selective pharmaceutical drugs to fight selective targets.

  4. Cancer Treatment • Metabolites -intermediate products of metabolism • Metobolites on sponges have anti-cancer properties • Acute mylocytic leukemia • Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma • Discodermolide- drug resistant cancer • E7389- lung cancer

  5. Other Treatments • A Caribbean sponge has been discovered to generate compounds used in the drug AZT (zidovudine, Retrovir), which is used to fight the AIDS virus. • Nuceloside Ara-A (vidarabine) extracted form sponge. Tethya crypta considered to be the most important antiviral drug extracted from sponges • treats herpetic infections

  6. Other Treatments (continued) • Haliclona exigua (marine sponge) is useful against leishmaniasis (disease caused by parasite) • Topsentin, one of the only deep-sea compounds being investigated for noncancer related treatments. • from Spongosporites ruetzleri • shows promise as an anti-inflammatory agent to treat arthritis, skin irritations, Alzheimer’s disease, and prevent colon cancer (National Research Council, 2002).

  7. References • http://www.noaa.gov/features/economic_0309/medicines.html • http://mcbi.marine-conservation.org/what/what_pdfs/Current_Magazine/Pharmacy.pdf • Animal Diversity, Hickman et. al. • http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17294216 • http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2992996/ • http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22361185 • http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22361177 • http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23620853 • www.mdpi.net/marinedrugs/

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