Natural Product Drug From Stressed Marine Invertebrate

We will develop methods that cause the de novo synthesis of biologically active allelochemicals by encrusting marine organisms. We will test these "tag metabolites" (=allelochemicals) for antitumor activity. These methods are designed to determine the potential for "tag metabolite" production within a given benthic ecosystem and can be incorporated into on-going systematic marine organism acquisition programs to enhance productivity. Representatives of the following invertebrate Phyla will be used in the ecological stress experiments: Porifera (sponges), Cnidaria (corals), Bryozoa (ectoprocts), and Urochordata (tunicates). Phase I will develop protocols that ecologically stress encrusting marine invertebrates to produce "tag metabolites". Phase II will expand these efforts to other geographic regions. Phase II will further the investigation by laboratory culture application of the field experiments using those organisms that produce pharmacologically interesting compounds; lead candidates will be patented and licensed to the government or to pharmaceutical companies further development. It is anticipated that "tag metabolites" with activity in the target therapeutic groups will be novel compounds of interest to the pharmaceutical industry.