Innovating for our health and the oceans
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Mote Marine Laboratory research programs represented on this page: Marine Biomedical Research Program • Marine Immunology Program
Stories on this page: Marine medicines: Isolating diamonds from the rough • Red tide pauses, but research to protect wildlife continues
MARINE MEDICINES: ISOLATING DIAMONDS FROM THE ROUGH
- Good news on the cancer research front:
Mote scientists made exciting progress toward isolating cancer-fighting compound(s) derived from shark immune-system cells, building upon their earlier findings that sharks’ epigonal organs produce a natural mixture of compounds that inhibits several human-tumor cell lines in the lab.
The cancer-fighting compound(s) must be isolated from the mixture to assess their therapeutic potential. Traditional methods to isolate them proved challenging, so Mote partnered with Green Mountain Antibodies on an alternative approach: developing antibodies (immune-system proteins) that might “recognize” the active compounds and help scientists isolate them. The researchers are producing the antibodies using methods never before applied to shark-derived compounds—a groundbreaking step. (Read about the methods in our 2019 annual report—scroll down to the fifth article.)
This year, Mote scientists screened dozens of potential antibodies and successfully pinpointed three-to-four antibodies that inhibit the cancer-fighting ability of the shark-immune-system compounds—meaning they are recognizing and interacting with the compounds of interest.
Now, more of these antibodies are being produced so Mote scientists can characterize their activity, with the goal of using the antibodies to recognize and separate the cancer-fighting compounds from the shark-derived mixture.
This cutting-edge research takes significant time and resources, but if successful it could be transformative, paving the way for producing enough of the cancer-fighting compound(s) in a purified form to enable animal studies required for the process of improving human cancer therapies.
- More potential antibiotics in the marine medicine cabinet:
This year Mote isolated dozens of marine bacteria capable of producing new antibiotic substances that fight disease-causing bacteria dangerous to humans and resistant to current antibiotics.
Since this project began in 2019, Mote has screened more than 1,150 marine bacteria sampled from snook, pompano, cownose rays, fish-aquaculture environments, and other marine environments, and found that 72 inhibit at least one of the antibiotic-resistant bacteria tested: MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus), VRE (vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus), Bacillus cereus and/or Serratia marcescens.
Efforts have been under way to characterize the antibiotic compounds inhibiting these pathogens, and such investigations must continue. This research is crucial because antibiotic resistance contributes to 750,000 deaths annually worldwide. Without new therapies to combat these diseases, deaths are predicted to increase to 10 million people a year by 2050.
RED TIDE PAUSES, BUT RESEARCH TO PROTECT WILDLIFE CONTINUES
- Working toward faster manatee recoveries:
This year, scientists made promising progress in a study seeking better treatments for red tide-poisoned manatees, despite sampling delays while red tide blooms were absent in the Gulf of Mexico.
The study, launched in 2018 by Florida International University (FIU) and Mote with funding from NOAA’s ECOHAB program, has the ultimate goal of improving veterinary care for manatees affected by toxins from Florida red tide algae (Karenia brevis) by investigating how the cells of the manatees’ immune systems respond to certain antioxidants—and whether those antioxidants work better than today’s standard, anti-inflammatory therapies.
This year, Mote scientists collected or received blood samples from nine manatees: seven healthy manatees in Crystal River, Florida, one healthy resident manatee at Mote Aquarium and one manatee recovering from red tide exposure at Sea World—the only remaining patient available during this year’s gap between red tides.
These samples allowed Mote to start measuring multiple components of manatee immune function and refining tests for specific, immune-related genes—in short, setting the stage to get the best possible immune-system data from any manatees rescued during upcoming red tides.
Meanwhile, FIU and Mote scientists both used lab-cultured lines of human immune cells as a more-available starting point for early tests of new, potential treatments. Based on their discoveries in the past year, the team is looking at a growing array of possible treatments for manatees—antioxidants that might relieve the chemical damage caused by red tide toxins—called oxidative stress—along with other chemical compounds derived from human medicine that might be able to alter the red tide toxins directly, reducing their toxicity.
Preliminary results show that some of the test compounds—alone and particularly in combination—help protect cultured human immune cells from at least one type of red tide toxin when treatment is given within hours of toxin exposure. The scientists are studying the mechanisms and doses behind these benefits and are well-positioned for intensive tests of their promising treatment “cocktails” as more manatee samples become available.
- Mote-mentored students investigate red tide toxins in fish:
While Florida red tide is known for causing massive fish kills, sometimes fish survive while retaining red tide toxins in their tissues. It’s important to understand how those toxins affect fish at a sublethal level.
In summer 2020, Mote scientists and interns in Mote’s National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program launched a preliminary research project investigating these “sublethal” effects of Florida red tide on fishes—for example, does exposure impair the immune systems of fish?
The NSF-REU program, supported by the National Science Foundation, allows Mote scientists to mentor exceptional students conducting independent research projects. To continue what the students began, funding is currently being pursued for a larger, more detailed investigation of sublethal red tide effects.