Oral Presentation Royal Australian Chemical Institute National Congress 2026

Isolation of Bioactive Metabolites from Western Australian Marine Sponges (137013)

Gavin R Flematti 1 , Brodie Bulcock 1 , Samuele Sala 2 , Darren Holland 1
  1. The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WESTERN AUSTRALIA, Australia
  2. Phenome Centre, Murdoch Univeristy, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Marine sponges have produced a wealth of novel natural products, notable for their potent bioactivities as well as structural and biosynthetic diversity. For a number of years, we have been investigating the bioactive chemistry of Western Australian marine sponges looking for new anti-cancer and anti-microbial agents. In particular we have been investigating deep-sea (>100 m) marine sponges from the Western Australian Marine Bio-resources Library collection stored at the Western Australian museum. Through mostly student-led projects, we have discovered a range of new compounds with biological activity such as the albanitriles1 and isabellins,2 along with new activities for known compounds, such as the anti-cancer activity demonstrated for aurantoside C.3 This work has now led to new collaborations with the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research to screen more selectively the anti-cancer potential of marine sponges. In addition, we are also collaborating with the Busselton Jetty, the longest timber piled jetty in the southern hemisphere at 1.84 kilometres. Here we plan to investigate the biomedical potential of marine sponges living under the jetty and further our work on isolating bioactive compounds from Western Australian marine sponges in general. In this presentation I will provide an overview of the new opportunities and preliminary data obtained so far as we begin to upscale our marine sponge screening program.

 

  1. 1. Sala, S., Fromont, J., Gomez, O., Vuong, D., Lacey E., Flematti, GR. 2019, Albanitriles A– G: Antiprotozoal Polyacetylene Nitriles from a Mycale Marine Sponge, Journal of Natural Products, vol. 82, no. 12, pp. 3450– 3455.
  2. 2. Sala, S., Moggach, S. A., Nealon, G. L., Fromont, J., Gomez, O., Vuong, D., Lacey, E., Flematti, GR. 2023, Type-I Hemins and Free Porphyrins from a Western Australian Sponge Isabela sp. Marine Drugs. 21, 1, 41.
  3. 3. Shrestha, S., Sorolla, A., Fromont, J., Blancafort, P., Flematti, GR. 2018, Aurantoside C Targets and Induces Apoptosis in Triple Negative Breast Cancer Cells, Marine Drugs, 16, 10.