Toledo-Hernández Carlos, Ruiz-Diaz Claudia P, Díaz-Vázquez Liz M, Santiago-Cárdenas Vanessa, Rosario-Berrios Derick N, García-Almedina Derek M, Roberson Loretta M
Sociedad Ambiente Marino SAM, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Department of Environmental Science, University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
PeerJ. 2017 Aug 25;5:e3677. doi: 10.7717/peerj.3677. eCollection 2017.
The roles of gorgonian sclerites as structural components and predator deterrents have been widely studied. Yet their role as barriers against microbes has only recently been investigated, and even less is known about the diversity and roles of the chemical compounds associated with sclerites.
Here, we examine the semi-volatile organic compound fraction (SVOCs) associated with sclerites from healthy and diseased sea fan corals to understand their possible role as a stress response or in defense of infection. We also measured the oxidative potential of compounds from diseased and healthy colonies.
The results showed that sclerites harbor a great diversity of SVOCs. Overall, 70 compounds were identified, the majority of which are novel with unknown biological roles. The majority of SVOCs identified exhibit multiple immune-related roles including antimicrobial and radical scavenging functions. The free radical activity assays further confirmed the anti-oxidative potential of some these compounds. The anti-oxidative activity was, nonetheless, similar across sclerites regardless of the health condition of the colony, although sclerites from diseased sea fans display slightly higher anti-oxidative activity than the healthy ones.
Sclerites harbor great SVOCs diversity, the majority of which are novel to sea fans or any other corals. Yet the scientific literature consulted showed that the roles of compounds found in sclerites vary from antioxidant to antimicrobial compounds. However, this study fell short in determine the origin of the SVOCs identified, undermining our capacity to determine the biological roles of the SVOCs on sclerites and sea fans.
柳珊瑚骨针作为结构成分和捕食威慑物的作用已得到广泛研究。然而，它们作为微生物屏障的作用直到最近才被研究，而且对于与骨针相关的化合物的多样性和作用了解更少。
在这里，我们研究了健康和患病海扇珊瑚骨针中相关的半挥发性有机化合物部分（SVOCs），以了解它们作为应激反应或抵御感染的可能作用。我们还测量了患病和健康群体中化合物的氧化潜力。
结果表明，骨针含有种类繁多的SVOCs。总体而言，共鉴定出70种化合物，其中大多数是具有未知生物学作用的新化合物。鉴定出的大多数SVOCs具有多种免疫相关作用，包括抗菌和自由基清除功能。自由基活性测定进一步证实了其中一些化合物的抗氧化潜力。尽管患病海扇的骨针比健康海扇的骨针表现出略高的抗氧化活性，但无论群体的健康状况如何，骨针的抗氧化活性相似。
骨针含有丰富的SVOCs多样性，其中大多数对海扇或任何其他珊瑚来说都是新的。然而，查阅的科学文献表明，在骨针中发现的化合物的作用从抗氧化剂到抗菌化合物各不相同。然而，这项研究未能确定所鉴定的SVOCs的来源，削弱了我们确定SVOCs对骨针和海扇的生物学作用的能力。
