What Sea Cucumbers Can Teach Us About Self-defense
upstart writes:
What sea cucumbers can teach us about self-defense:
Sea cucumbers are a food delicacy in south Asia where their cultivation is a multi-million-dollar industry. The molecules they produce to defend their ecological niche at the bottom of the ocean are highly valued for their medicinal properties.
These curious marine animals produce a category of molecule known as triterpenoid saponins which are widespread in plants, but rare in animals.
Until now the question of how they evolved their unusual ability to produce these molecules has been unexplained. An international research collaboration investigated the genome of sea cucumbers and compared them with those of other Echinoderms, such as sea stars and sea urchins. Analysis showed that an enzyme found across all kingdoms of life that makes sterols, essential for building membranes and hormones, was missing in sea cucumber.
In sea cucumbers this sterol-producing function had been diverted to produce two new genes in this enzyme family. Using molecular biology, the researchers isolated the genes, transferred them to yeast and analysed the extracts.
This showed that the genes have acquired new functions; one of them makes an alternative type of saponin that the sea cucumber uses for self-defence, and the other produces molecules that protect the creature from the toxic effects of its own chemicals.
Chemical analysis showed that these genes required for the synthesis of self-defence compounds were expressed more in the outside layers of tissue.
Journal Reference:
Thimmappa, Ramesha, Wang, Shi, Zheng, Minyan, et al. Biosynthesis of saponin defensive compounds in sea cucumbers [open], Nature Chemical Biology (DOI: 10.1038/s41589-022-01054-y)
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