Anticancer Drugs From Halophilic Marine Microorganisms

Our goal is to enable the discovery and development of new anticancer drugs by developing methods afor the production of halophilic microorganisms and their natural product chemicals. This project sescreen a library of several thousand strains of heterotrophs from hypersaline environments. Moderatemicroorganisms, which grow optimally in greater then 10 percent salinity, not 3.5 percent salinity mseawater, are diverse and include many not found in normal marine and terrestrial environments. Theya large, untapped source of unique natural products. Using both traditional and novel, marine-derivbacterial groups will be targeted for isolation, including actinomycetes and animal symbionts. Extrwill be tested for antitumor activities, and bioactive extracts and compounds will be biologically acharacterized. The project is innovative in that microbial cultivation will target hypersaline sourcespecially actinomycetes and animal symbionts, will use high salt media with altered concentrationsmarine sources both for growth and as precursor substrates for secondary metabolite production.