Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 31, 2026

Isolation, Propagation, and Identification of Bacterial Species with Hydrocarbon Metabolizing Properties from Aquatic Habitats
Published on: December 7, 2021
Phylogeny-guided isolation of ethyl tumonoate A from the marine cyanobacterium cf. Oscillatoria margaritifera
Niclas Engene1, Hyukjae Choi, Eduardo Esquenazi
1Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA.
Abstract:
The evolutionary relationships of cyanobacteria, as inferred by their SSU (16S) rRNA genes, were used as predictors of their potential to produce varied secondary metabolites. The evolutionary relatedness in geographically distant cyanobacterial specimens was then used as a guide for the detection and isolation of new variations of predicted molecules. This phylogeny-guided isolation approach for new secondary metabolites was tested in its capacity to direct the search for specific classes of new natural products from Curaçao marine cyanobacteria. As a result, we discovered ethyl tumonoate A (1), a new tumonoic acid derivative with anti-inflammatory activity and inhibitory activity of calcium oscillations in neocortical neurons.

