First Report on Chitin in a Non-Verongiid Marine Demosponge: The Mycale euplectellioides Case
Sonia Żółtowska-Aksamitowska,
Lamiaa A. Shaala,
Diaa T. A. Youssef,
Sameh S. Elhady,
Mikhail V. Tsurkan,
Iaroslav Petrenko,
Marcin Wysokowski,
Konstantin Tabachnick,
Heike Meissner,
Viatcheslav N. Ivanenko,
Nicole Bechmann,
Yvonne Joseph,
Teofil Jesionowski,
Hermann Ehrlich
Affiliations
Sonia Żółtowska-Aksamitowska
Institute of Chemical Technology and Engineering, Faculty of Chemical Technology, Poznan University of Technology, Berdychowo 4, 61131 Poznan, Poland
Lamiaa A. Shaala
Natural Products Unit, King Fahd Medical Research Center, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
Diaa T. A. Youssef
Department of Natural Products, Faculty of Pharmacy, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
Sameh S. Elhady
Department of Natural Products, Faculty of Pharmacy, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
Mikhail V. Tsurkan
Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden, 01069 Dresden, Germany
Iaroslav Petrenko
Institute of Experimental Physics, TU Bergakademie-Freiberg, Leipziger str. 23, 09559 Freiberg, Germany
Marcin Wysokowski
Institute of Chemical Technology and Engineering, Faculty of Chemical Technology, Poznan University of Technology, Berdychowo 4, 61131 Poznan, Poland
Konstantin Tabachnick
P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of Academy of Sciences of Russia, 117997 Moscow, Russia
Heike Meissner
Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, Dresden University of Technology, 01307 Dresden, Germany
Viatcheslav N. Ivanenko
Department of Invertebrate Zoology, Biological Faculty, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119992 Moscow, Russia
Nicole Bechmann
Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, Medical Faculty Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, 01307 Dresden, Germany
Yvonne Joseph
Institute of Electronics and Sensor Materials, TU Bergakademie Freiberg, 09599 Freiberg, Germany
Teofil Jesionowski
Institute of Chemical Technology and Engineering, Faculty of Chemical Technology, Poznan University of Technology, Berdychowo 4, 61131 Poznan, Poland
Hermann Ehrlich
Institute of Experimental Physics, TU Bergakademie-Freiberg, Leipziger str. 23, 09559 Freiberg, Germany
Sponges (Porifera) are recognized as aquatic multicellular organisms which developed an effective biochemical pathway over millions of years of evolution to produce both biologically active secondary metabolites and biopolymer-based skeletal structures. Among marine demosponges, only representatives of the Verongiida order are known to synthetize biologically active substances as well as skeletons made of structural polysaccharide chitin. The unique three-dimensional (3D) architecture of such chitinous skeletons opens the widow for their recent applications as adsorbents, as well as scaffolds for tissue engineering and biomimetics. This study has the ambitious goal of monitoring other orders beyond Verongiida demosponges and finding alternative sources of naturally prestructured chitinous scaffolds; especially in those demosponge species which can be cultivated at large scales using marine farming conditions. Special attention has been paid to the demosponge Mycale euplectellioides (Heteroscleromorpha: Poecilosclerida: Mycalidae) collected in the Red Sea. For the first time, we present here a detailed study of the isolation of chitin from the skeleton of this sponge, as well as its identification using diverse bioanalytical tools. Calcofluor white staining, Fourier-transform Infrared Spcetcroscopy (FTIR), electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and fluorescence microscopy, as well as a chitinase digestion assay were applied in order to confirm with strong evidence the finding of a-chitin in the skeleton of M. euplectellioides. We suggest that the discovery of chitin within representatives of the Mycale genus is a promising step in their evaluation of these globally distributed sponges as new renewable sources for both biologically active metabolites and chitin, which are of prospective use for pharmacology and biomaterials oriented biomedicine, respectively.
