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Coral aquaculture to support drug discovery
Leal, M.C.; Calado, R.; Sheridan, C.; Alimonti, A.; Osinga, R. (2013). Coral aquaculture to support drug discovery. Trends Biotechnol. 31(10): 555-561. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tibtech.2013.06.004
In: Trends in Biotechnology. Elsevier: Amsterdam. ISSN 0167-7799; e-ISSN 1879-3096, more
Peer reviewed article  

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Keywords
    Cnidaria [WoRMS]
    Marine/Coastal
Author keywords
    Cnidaria; biomass supply; bioactive compounds; microbiota; economicfeasibility

Authors  Top 
  • Leal, M.C.
  • Calado, R.
  • Sheridan, C., more
  • Alimonti, A.
  • Osinga, R.

Abstract
    Marine natural products (NP) are unanimously acknowledged as the 'blue gold' in the urgent quest for new pharmaceuticals. Although corals are among the marine organisms with the greatest diversity of secondary metabolites, growing evidence suggest that their symbiotic bacteria produce most of these bioactive metabolites. The ex hospite culture of coral symbiotic microbiota is extremely challenging and only limited examples of successful culture exist today. By contrast, in toto aquaculture of corals is a commonly applied technology to produce corals for aquaria. Here, we suggest that coral aquaculture could as well be a viable and economically feasible option to produce the biomass required to execute the first steps of the NP-based drug discovery pipeline.

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