A NEW METHOD FOR SPONGE IN VITRO CULTURE FOR DRUG PRODUCTION

摘要

Some sponge species have been harvested and used for thousands of years as bath sponges, but overfishing and disease outbreaks have decimated natural populations in the Mediterranean, the Bahamas, Cuba and Florida (Moore, 1908). Sponges may also havecommercial importance because some species contain a very high diversity of bioactive metabolites, constituting about 40% of the natural products described in the last few years (Faulkner, 2000; Fusetani, 2000). Some of these metabolites have pharmaceutical potential as anticancer drugs or molecular probes (Wallace, 1997). One possible method of supplying sufficient and sustainable quantities of the target metabolite is in vitro culture, where the sponges are grown under controlled conditions in tanks on land. In this study, a new culture method was examined for two Florida sponge species, Halichondria melanadocia and Tedania ignis. Explants of each species were grown on mesh pieces of different materials and sizes to determine the importance of mesh characteristics on sponge survival, attachment and growth.