Two-headed Sphingolipids from Tropical Marine Sponges

Abstract

Tropical marine sponges are a vast frontier for new discoveries. Many marine sponges contain biochemical secret that, if unlocked, can provide new insights and understanding of human diseases and their treatment. In the course of our continued investigations on bioactive natural products from tropical marine organisms we have collected about 800 samples of sponges during the scientific cruises of the research vessels “Professor Bogorov” and “Akademik Oparin” in 1981-2007. Regions of collecting were Great Barrier Reef, Coast of Tanzania, and Vietnam, Seychelles, Madagaskar, Sokotra, and Cook Islands. Most of the samples of sponge collection were taxonomically identified. It was showed that tropical marine sponges are richest source for discovery of sphingolipids with unusual structures and biological properties. Sphingolipids appear to play an important role in cellular regulation. Unusual sphingolipid analogs may act on the metabolism of normal sphingolipids, or as agonists or antagonists interacting with sphingolipid-recognition sites in regulatory process.