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Abstract
Jellyfish outbreaks in marine coastal areas represent an emergent problem worldwide, with negative consequences on human activities and ecosystem functioning. However, potential positive effects of jellyfish biomass proliferation may be envisaged as a natural source of bioactive compounds of pharmaceutical interest. We investigated the biochemical composition of mature female gonads and lysozyme antibacterial activity of oocytes in the Mediterranean barrel jellyfish Rhizostoma pulmo. Chemical characterization was performed by means of multinuclear and multidimensional NMR spectroscopy. The ovaries of R. pulmo were mainly composed of water (93.7 ± 1.9% of wet weight), with organic matter (OM) and dry weight made respectively of proteins (761.76 ± 25.11 µg mg−1 and 45.7 ± 1.5%), lipids (192.17 ± 10.56 µg mg−1 and 9.6 ± 0.6%), and carbohydrates (59.66 ± 2.72 µg mg−1 and 3.7 ± 0.3%). The aqueous extract of R. pulmo gonads contained free amino acids, organic acids, and derivatives; the lipid extract was composed of triglycerides (TG), polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), diunsaturated fatty acids (DUFAs), monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), saturated fatty acids (SFAs), and minor components such as sterols and phospholipids. The R. pulmo oocyte lysate exhibited an antibacterial lysozyme-like activity (mean diameter of lysis of 9.33 ± 0.32 mm corresponding to 1.21 mg/mL of hen egg-white lysozyme). The occurrence of defense molecules is a crucial mechanism to grant healthy development of mature eggs and fertilized embryos (and the reproductive success of the species) by preventing marine bacterial overgrowth. As a corollary, these results call for future investigations for an exploitation of R. pulmo biomasses as a resource of bioactive metabolites of biotechnological importance including pharmaceuticals and nutrition.
Highlights
Anthozoans and medusozoans belong to Cnidaria, a group of approximately 10,000 marine invertebrates known to produce complex proteinaceous venomous mixtures used for defense and prey capture and delivered through highly specialized, epithelial mechano-sensor cells
Cnidarians possess a repertory of defense mechanisms, including the production of bioactive compounds involved in the recognition and neutralization of invaders [7]
A wide variety of antimicrobial peptides has been extracted from sponges, annelids, mollusks, crustaceans, tunicates, and cnidarians, AMPs still remain a largely unexplored resource, representing the starting point for the development of new antibiotics with a natural broad spectrum of action [13]
Summary
Anthozoans and medusozoans (commonly known as polyps and jellyfish, respectively) belong to Cnidaria, a group of approximately 10,000 marine invertebrates known to produce complex proteinaceous venomous mixtures used for defense and prey capture and delivered through highly specialized, epithelial mechano-sensor cells (the cnidocytes). A wide variety of antimicrobial peptides has been extracted from sponges, annelids, mollusks, crustaceans, tunicates, and cnidarians, AMPs still remain a largely unexplored resource, representing the starting point for the development of new antibiotics with a natural broad spectrum of action [13]. Some of these compounds do not allow bacteria to develop resistance towards them [14]. The metabolomics profiling and biochemical evaluation of a number of cnidarian species led to the discovery of more than 2000 natural compounds with antimicrobial/antibiotic properties [15]
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