MICROMAR: Lead potential of marine microorganisms from coastal, shelf and deepsea sediments, a comparative assessment for optimized search strategies

• Forschungsstelle: EU FRP
• Projektnummer: 99.0657
• Projekttitel Englisch: MICROMAR: Lead potential of marine microorganisms from coastal, shelf and deepsea sediments, a comparative assessment for optimized search strategies

Schlüsselwörter (Englisch)

Marine microbiology; biodiversity; screening; bioactive metabolites; marine sediments

Alternative Projektnummern (Englisch)

EU project number: EVK3-1999-00001

Forschungsprogramme (Englisch)

EU-programme: 5. Frame Research Programme - 1.4a.3 Sustainable marine ecosystems

Kurzbeschreibung (Englisch)

See abstract

Partner und Internationale Organisationen (Englisch)

TU-Berlin MAT (D); Anagnostec GmbH (D); Galiläus Oy (FIN); Syngenta Crop Protection
AG (CH); TU-Berlin FÖM (D); University of Athens (EL)

Abstract (Englisch)

This EU-project for industrial, life science oriented marine product research is aiming for new bioactive metabolites for agrochemical or pharmaceutical applications. Our partners 'TU Berlin - Institut für Maritime Technik' and 'University of Athens - Institute of Pharmacognosy' have organised the collection of 222 marine sediment samples from different water depths within 31 sampling cruises at 23 different areas around the world. These sediment samples are being geologically characterised and used for the isolation of marine microorganisms. So far the 'TU Berlin - Fachbereich Öklogie der Mikroorganismen' and the 'University of Athens' have isolated about 1'070 marine bacterial strains thereof. Most of these strains were sent to the industrial partners within the project: Galiläus Oy, a Finnish company that screens for potential anti-cancer applications, and to our company, Syngenta. Our interest is to study the physiological needs of these microorganisms, to improve methods for their cultivation and to screen them for bioactive compounds as potential lead candidates with agrochemical relevance.During the first year of the project we focused on method development for suitable cultivation conditions and fermented the first strains in different media. In the reporting period we received about 500 additional strains and studied all for their physiological needs with regard to salt and temperature dependency. Based on that data we run small-scale liquid media cultivations and extractions in 24-deepwell plates to examine the bioactive potential in a set of miniaturised pre-screen bioassays based on cell cultures from Drosophila melanogaster and some phytopathogenic fungi. Based on the results thereof promising strains were chosen and fermented under several different conditions at larger scale. In addition standard fermentations were done for each received marine microorganism. In total so far 292 extracts from these cultures have passed our High Throughput Screening (HTS).From HTS we selected several strains with biological activity and identification and/or isolation has started already. First promising results for the discovery of interesting 'marine metabolites' are available.In the third and last year of the project we intend to increase the screening load and pass all delivered microorganisms through HTS. Together with our partners we will further characterise the interesting producers with regard to taxonomy. Detected bioactive metabolites will be isolated and chemical structures will be elucidated.

Datenbankreferenzen (Englisch)

Swiss Database: Euro-DB of the
State Secretariat for Education and Research
Hallwylstrasse 4
CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Swiss Project-Number: 99.0657