An elephant ear sponge (Agelas clathrodes family).
Sponges are found in every ocean of the world. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, they have been used for many purposes, including cleaning tasks and painting.
In 1993, researchers identified sponges from the Agelas family that emit six important chemicals believed to help them defend their territory.
Those chemicals, called agelastatins, have also been shown to kill cancer cells by obstructing cell division. Agelas sponges, which are found in the Coral Sea and Indian Ocean, are difficult to obtain, so researchers have had trouble generating enough agelastatin to conduct large-scale experiments in cancer cells. For that reason, chemists have been trying to find ways to synthesize them in a laboratory setting—for a potential cancer drug. So far, chemists have successfully produced some of the chemical compounds, but not all six.
According to Mohammad Movassaghi, a chemist at MIT working on the project, “They [agelastatins] have a very broad range of biological activity.” The species can also repress an enzyme known as glycogen synthase kinase-3, a potential target for treating Alzheimer’s disease and bipolar disorder.
Movassaghi’s lab is now collaborating with other researchers to test the biological activity of the compounds, with an emphasis on their anti-cancer activity. Using the new synthesis methods, the researchers should be able to produce variants not found in nature, which could produce “even more powerful effects,” said Movassaghi.
