NEWS
Investigation of tetrodotoxin accumulation in the anuran Brachycephalus pitanga and its microbiome
Our latest article published in 2021 reports the investigation on the occurrence of tetrodotoxin (TTX) in the tissues of the anuran Brachycephalus pitanga and the anuran microbiome. This article results from the post-doctoral project of Dr. Luciane Alessandra Chimetto Tonon, funded by FAPESP, in collaboration with Professor Celio Haddad at the Biosciences Institute of the State University of São Paulo at Rio Claro.
Although B. pitanga is a very small animal (the size of the little finger nail), we have been able, with a small number of animals (only eight), to detect TTX in its skin and viscera. We have also isolated 80 bacteria strains. Metagenomic and genomic analysis of B. pitanga bacteria diversity indicated a unique microbiome of the animal. However, we have not been able to detect the presence of TTX in cultures of several bacteria representatives which have been cultivated and the extracted growth media analyzed by UPLC-HRMS. Read the article here.
New review in NPR – The isolation of water-soluble natural products – challenges, strategies and perspectives
This is a new review article published on line today in RSC Natural Product Reports. It was a considerable volume of work, because it results of one of my main research interests since my PhD in 1992.
During my PhD at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, under the supervision of Professor Jean-Claude Braekman and of Professor Desiré Daloze, I had the opportunity to isolate several new guanidine alkaloids from the Mediterranean sponge Crambe crambe. All compounds I isolated were water-soluble. Since then, I have a long-standing interest in the isolation of bioactive water-soluble natural products. My group have isolated several of such compounds.
This particular review is the first rather comprehensive review on this subject. It was a one-year-and-half effort together with Camila M. Crnkovic, Juliana R. Gubiani, Darlon I. Bernardi, Laura P. Ióca and Jairo I. Quintana-Bulla.
I hope you will enjoy the reading. Please, don’t forget to check out the Supplementary Information for several additional examples of water-soluble natural products belonging to distinct metabolic classes. It also includes a voluminous additional literature examples. Overall, the review has almost 2,000 references.
Read the article here.
Novel nonribosomal peptides modulate collective behavior in marine sponge derived Pseudovibrio bacteria
This article results from a fantastic team effort leaded by Professor Alessandra Eustaquio at the University of Illinois Chicago, along with her colleagues. Professor Alessandra was very kind in receiving my former PhD student Laura Ióca in her lab. Laura developed a project under Alessandra’s supervision, that enabled the discovery of modified peptides involved in Pseudovibrio and Pseudomonas motility. Laura Sanchez, Jimmy Orjala, Alec Krunic, Antonio G. Ferreira gave great contributions along with Sylvia Kunakom, Yitao Dai, Jennifer Lopez-Espinosa, Camila Crnkovic. It was a fun and great work to develop together. I am very much looking forward to soon have the opportunity to visit again the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. It is a great institution I visited for the first time in 2018. Read the full article here.
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