Oregon健康科学大学（OHSU）的科学家相信，从一种细菌中发现的基因可能是制造新型抗癌药物的第一步，这种细菌保护着一种类似苔藓的海洋无脊椎动物免受捕食者的侵害。
OHSU的环境和生物分子系统教授Margo Haygood小组最近发现了这种保护海洋苔藓虫Bugula neritina幼虫的细菌的大型基因群。这种细菌叫Endobugula sertula，和苔藓虫是共生关系，它们能分泌一种生物活性分子bryostatins，使得深红色的小幼虫味道变的很不好。但是这一分子同事也能对抗多种癌症细胞。
Haygood的这一工作最近发表在《Nature Products》上，她说：“整个幼虫表面都覆盖着这一物质。同时在成虫的根部也存在这些分子，这可能帮助它们保护地盘。”而科学家知道bryostatins，特别是bryostatins1是抗癌物质，能对抗多种癌症。但是问题在于，如何获得大量的用于制药的bryostatins。细菌只能在苔藓虫提供的特殊环境中生存，而养殖苔藓虫来获得这种分子太过昂贵。
因此Haygood小组和Michigan大学合作，找到了一种可能在未来使bryostatins大量生产的方法。他们测序了两种类似的Endobugula细菌的基因，一种来自深海，一种来自浅海。然后分离了相关基因群。这些基因能制造bryostatins。Haygood表示，下一步他们将会把这些基因放到一种生物体内，从而可以继续生产bryostatins，甚至达到工业生产的规模。
Haygood表示：“如果能将整个基因组在单个细胞中正确表达，就可以像制造啤酒那样容易的得到bryostatins。但是这之前还有很多工作要做。”
译自：physorg.com
部分英文原文：
Nat. Prod. Rep., 2004, 21, 122 - 142, DOI: 10.1039/b302336m
Approaches to identify, clone, and express symbiont bioactive metabolite genes
Mark Hildebrand, Laura E. Waggoner, Grace E. Lim, Katherine H. Sharp, Christian P. Ridley and Margo G. Haygood *
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Marine Biology Research Division; Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine; and UCSD Cancer Center, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA Received (in Cambridge, UK) 22nd October 2003 First published as an Advance Article on the web 15th December 2003
1 Introduction
1.1 Marine invertebrate natural products
Marine invertebrates have been and continue to be a prolific source of novel and structurally diverse natural products.1,2 Often these compounds display potent and selective bioactivities that trigger biomedical interest.3 Unfortunately, the supply of the bioactive natural product is usually insufficient to meet the demands of pre-clinical and clinical development. A large-scale collection of the source marine invertebrate can be difficult due to scarcity of the organism, and can also have negative environmental consequences. In addition, natural supplies can fluctuate, either seasonally or due to environmental changes. Aquaculture 4 or cell culture of an invertebrate could alleviate supply problems, but approaches for these are not yet developed for all organisms. Ideally, an efficient chemical synthesis
of the desired natural product could be achieved, however the structural complexity of many natural products such as
bryostatin 1 (1) and swinholide A (2) requires inefficient multistep syntheses that cannot meet the demands of pre-clinical and clinical development.5 Identification of a simpler, more easily synthesized structure which retains the biological activity 6 is another option, but the best scenario would be to have a supply of the natural product that can be generated inexpensively and reproducibly in the lab under controlled conditions.
英文全文链接：
http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_ArticleLinking/DisplayArticleForFree.cfm?doi=b302336m&JournalCode=NP
http://www.bioon.com 生物谷网站
