Tunicate Treatment

The Caribbean mangrove tunicate (a type of sea squirt, pictured) produces a promising anti-cancer compound known as ET-743. Researchers have long suspected that it's not the tunicate itself that produces the molecule, but a microorganism living on it. Now, scientists have sequenced for the first time the genome of the microorganism – a bacterium – that produces ET-743. An analysis of its genome suggests that the bacterium belongs to an entirely new family, as yet unidentified. In the wild, the active ingredient is thought to be essential to the sea squirt by making it taste horrible, reducing predation. The goal now is to culture the bacterium in the lab without the sea squirt. ET-743 is clinically approved in Europe and is in phase III clinical trials in the United States. Studies such as this highlight the medical importance of bacteria, the vast majority of which remain unstudied.

Written by Nick Kennedy

Nick Kennedy

Writer

A Biology and Science Communication graduate, Nick is now working behind the scenes on the BPoD project. He also works as a freelance science journalist.

• Image by Sean Nash on Flickr
• Originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 2.0)
• Research published in Environmental Microbiology, May 2015