Cárdenas Paco, Gamage Jayani, Hettiarachchi Chamari M, Gunasekera Sunithi
Pharmacognosy, Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, Uppsala University, Husargatan 3, 751 23 Uppsala, Sweden.
Department of Chemistry, University of Colombo, Kumaratunga Munidasa Mawatha, Colombo 03, Sri Lanka.
Mar Drugs. 2022 Mar 4;20(3):190. doi: 10.3390/md20030190.
Species misidentification in the field of natural products is an acknowledged problem. These errors are especially widespread in sponge studies, albeit rarely assessed and documented. As a case study, we aim to revisit reports of isomalabaricane triterpenes, isolated from four demosponge genera: , , and . From a total of 44 articles (1981-2022), 27 unique vouchers were listed, 21 of which were accessed and re-examined here: 11 (52.4%) of these were misidentified. Overall, 65.9% of the studies published an incorrect species name: previously identified and species were all in fact . We conclude that isomalabaricane triterpenes were isolated from only two species and possibly one species. In addition to shedding a new light on the distribution of isomalabaricane triterpenes, this study is an opportunity to highlight the crucial importance of vouchers in natural product studies. Doing so, we discuss the impact of species misidentification and poor accessibility of vouchers in the field of sponge natural products. We advocate for stricter voucher guidelines in natural product journals and propose a common protocol of good practice, in the hope of reducing misidentifications in sponge studies, ensure reproducibility of studies, and facilitate follow-up work on the original material.
天然产物领域的物种误认是一个公认的问题。这些错误在海绵研究中尤为普遍，尽管很少被评估和记录。作为一个案例研究，我们旨在重新审视从四个海绵纲属（、、和）中分离出的异马拉巴烷三萜的报道。在总共44篇文章（1981 - 2022年）中，列出了27个独特的凭证标本，其中21个在此被获取并重新检查：其中11个（52.4%）被误认。总体而言，65.9%的研究发表了错误的物种名称：先前鉴定的和物种实际上都是。我们得出结论，异马拉巴烷三萜仅从两个物种和可能一个物种中分离得到。除了为异马拉巴烷三萜的分布提供新的线索外，本研究还提供了一个机会来强调凭证标本在天然产物研究中的至关重要性。在此过程中，我们讨论了物种误认和凭证标本获取不便对海绵天然产物领域的影响。我们主张在天然产物期刊中制定更严格的凭证标本指南，并提出一个良好实践的通用方案，希望减少海绵研究中的误认，确保研究的可重复性，并促进对原始材料的后续研究。
