| > Oceanography > Issues > Archive > Volume 19, Number 2 |
2006, Oceanography 19(2):120–125, http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2006.75
Case Study | High Throughput Cultivation for Isolation of Novel Marine Microorganisms
Authors | First Paragraph | Full Article | Citation
Authors
Gerardo Toledo | Molecular Diversity, Diversa Corporation, San Diego, CA, USA
Wayne Green | Molecular Diversity, Diversa Corporation, San Diego, CA, USA
Ricardo A. Gonzalez | Molecular Diversity, Diversa Corporation, San Diego, CA, USA, and CICESE, Ensenada, Mexico
Leif Christoffersen | E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, Hillsbourgh, NC, USA
Mircea Podar | Bioinformatics, Diversa Corporation, San Diego, CA, USA
Hwai W. Chang | Molecular Diversity, Diversa Corporation, San Diego, CA, USA
Thomas Hemscheidt | Department of Chemistry, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, USA
Henry G. Trapido-Rosenthal | School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, USA
Jay M. Short | Microbial Solutions Inc., and E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, and Diversa Corporation, San Diego, CA, USA
Robert R. Bidigare | Center for Marine Microbial Ecology and Diversity, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, USA, and Microbial Solutions Inc., and E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation
Eric J. Mathur | Microbial Solutions Inc., and J. Craig Venter Institute and Synthetic Genomics Inc., and E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, and Diversa Corporation, San Diego, CA, USA
First Paragraph
Natural products are organic molecules derived from plants, animals, or microorganisms, and represent the starting point for most of the anti-infective and anti-cancer drugs on the market today. Until recently, the majority of natural products has been isolated from terrestrial sources. During the last two decades, however, the rate of discovery of novel compounds has declined significantly, as exemplified by the fact that extracts from soil-derived actinomycetes have yielded unacceptably high numbers of previously described metabolites (Mincer et al., 2002). In addition to the redundancy and associated issue of de-replication, an innovation gap has been postulated as a cause for the dramatic reduction in small molecule novelty. Even today, most microbiologists are constrained by the use of traditional cultivation methods, which primarily target previously cultured microbes ("microbial weeds"). As a result, most pharmaceutical companies no longer place an emphasis on natural-product discovery as a source of lead compounds (Walsh, 2003).
Full Article
Citation
Toledo, G., W. Green, R.A. Gonzalez, L. Christoffersen, M. Podar, H.W. Chang, T. Hemscheidt, H.G. Trapido-Rosenthal, J.M. Short, R.R. Bidigare, and E.J. Mathur. 2006. High throughput cultivation for isolation of novel marine microorganisms. Oceanography 19(2):120–125, http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2006.75.