Biosynthetic Pathways of Marine Sponge-Derived Natural Products

Marine sponges host intricate microbial consortia that underpin the biosynthesis of a vast array of structurally diverse natural products. These specialised metabolites are assembled by multi-enzymatic machineries—principally polyketide synthases (PKSs), nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs) and hybrid PKS–NRPS systems—encoded within biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) in sponge symbionts. Advances in genome sequencing, metagenomic assembly and multi-omic approaches have elucidated the organisation, modular logic and regulatory networks of these pathways, revealing unprecedented biochemical transformations such as trans-acyltransferase PKS modules, proteusin-type ribosomal peptide pathways and unusual tailoring enzymes. Insights into these biosynthetic blueprints have not only clarified ecological roles in chemical defence, signalling and symbiotic homeostasis but also enabled biotechnological strategies for sustainable production, synthetic biology exploitation and lead discovery in pharmaceutical development.

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Biosynthetic Pathways of Marine Sponge-Derived Natural Products publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in biosynthetic pathways of marine sponge-derived natural products across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Holobiont: A host organism together with its symbiotic microbial community, considered as an integrated ecological unit.

Biosynthetic gene cluster (BGC): A contiguous set of co-localised genes encoding enzymes and regulatory elements responsible for the stepwise assembly of a specialised metabolite.

Polyketide synthase (PKS): A modular enzyme complex that constructs polyketide compounds through the sequential condensation of acyl building blocks.

Nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS): A multimodular enzyme system that assembles peptide natural products independently of the ribosome using amino acid monomers.

Metagenomic binning: The computational grouping of sequence fragments from mixed community DNA into draft genomes or taxonomic units to reconstruct the genetic potential of individual microbes.

References

1. Metagenomic Exploration of the Marine Sponge Mycale hentscheli Uncovers Multiple Polyketide-Producing Bacterial Symbionts. mBio (2020).
2. Distribution and diversity of ‘Tectomicrobia’, a deep-branching uncultivated bacterial lineage harboring rich producers of bioactive metabolites. ISME Communications (2023).
3. Multi-Omic Profiling of Melophlus Sponges Reveals Diverse Metabolomic and Microbiome Architectures that Are Non-overlapping with Ecological Neighbors. Marine Drugs (2020).