A discovery made in marine biomedical laboratories at UCSD’s
Scripps Institution of Oceanography has led to key information about the
fundamental biological processes that occur inside a marine organism, leading
to the creation of a natural product currently being tested to treat cancer.
The finding could pave the way for new applications of the
natural product in treating human diseases.
The research team, led by Bradley Moore, a professor at
Scripps Oceanography Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine and Skaggs
School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and postdoctoral researcher
Alessandra Eustáquio, uncovered an enzyme called SalL inside Salinispora
tropica, a promising marine bacterium identified by Scripps researchers in
1991.
Researchers also discovered a novel pathway for the way the
marine bacterium incorporates chlorine atoms, the key ingredient for triggering
its potent cancer-fighting natural product. The Salinispora derivative is
currently in phase one of human clinical trials for the treatment of multiple
myeloma and other cancers.
“This was a totally unexpected pathway,”
well over 2,000 chlorinated natural products, and this is the first example in
which chlorine is assimilated by this kind of pathway.”
