Tuesday, August 12, 2008 - 10:30 AM
S69

Chemically Diverse Natural Products from Phylogenetically Diverse Marine Cyanobacteria

Benjamin R. Clark1, T. Luke Simmons1, Niclas Engene1, Lena Gerwick1, and William H. Gerwick2. (1) Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, MC 0212, La Jolla, CA 92093, (2) Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, MC 0212, La Jolla, CA 92093

Marine cyanobacteria are one of the richest sources of novel secondary metabolites, many of which possess potent biological activities in assays relevant to treating human diseases.  With an interest to better understand the phylogenetic diversity of cyanobacteria that we are sampling in our drug discovery efforts, we have conducted extensive 16S rDNA sequencing of our field collected as well as cultured cyanobacteria.  From these efforts it is clear that these sequences are useful for determining phylogenetic relationships at the genus level; however, at the species level this type of analysis is flawed.  Two specific projects will be discussed which illustrate the natural product and phylogenetic diversity of our cyanobacterial collections.  First, a Panamanian collection of Oscillatoria nigro-viridis was a source of new anti-protozoan natural products of a lipopeptide nature, and secondly, a Papua New Guinea collection of Blennothrix cantharidosmum was a source of new tumonic acid derivatives with modest antimalarial properties.

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