Abstract
Marine ascidians are becoming important drug sources that provide abundant secondary metabolites with novel structures and high bioactivities. As one of the most chemically prolific marine animals, more than 1200 inspirational natural products, such as alkaloids, peptides, and polyketides, with intricate and novel chemical structures have been identified from ascidians. Some of them have been successfully developed as lead compounds or highly efficient drugs. Although numerous compounds that exist in ascidians have been structurally and functionally identified, their origins are not clear. Interestingly, growing evidence has shown that these natural products not only come from ascidians, but they also originate from symbiotic microbes. This review classifies the identified natural products from ascidians and the associated symbionts. Then, we discuss the diversity of ascidian symbiotic microbe communities, which synthesize diverse natural products that are beneficial for the hosts. Identification of the complex interactions between the symbiont and the host is a useful approach to discovering ways that direct the biosynthesis of novel bioactive compounds with pharmaceutical potentials.
Highlights
Marine ascidians are ancestral chordates belonging to the species of tunicate in the subphylumUrochordate [1]
We first document the novel compounds produced by the host animals, and we focus on the existing metabolites that have been identified from ascidian symbionts
We summarize the diversity of microbe communities, which benefit the hosts but are involved in their regulatory roles in the biosynthesis of natural products
Summary
Marine ascidians are ancestral chordates belonging to the species of tunicate in the subphylum. Distribution of FDA-approved molecules in preclinical trials from different marine organisms. Despite the various metabolites that are produced by ascidians, symbiotic microbes have been found to be rich sources of bioactive and pharmacologically valuable compounds [21]. There is increasing evidence that around 100 (8%) of the known compounds isolated from ascidian symbionts offer a renewable supply, which is important for marine drug candidates (Figure 1f) [22,23,24]. We first document the novel compounds produced by the host animals, and we focus on the existing metabolites that have been identified from ascidian symbionts. The interactions between ascidians and their symbionts indicate the existence of some small molecules that are directly recognized by symbiotic microbes to modulate and control the production of natural compounds, which, in turn, affect the host ascidians
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