Aplidium albicans explained

Aplidium albicans is a toxic sea squirt native to the Mediterranean Sea.

Range

Native to the Mediterranean Sea.^{[1] [2] [3]} Population density is sparse in its native range.

Toxins

A. albicans contains aplidine (aplidin, plitidepsin),^{[4] [5]} found by Steiner et al 2015 and Borjan et al 2015^[6] to be a cytotoxin (due to its apoptotic^[7] effect) and antiangiogenic. The toxin is structurally and functionally almost identical to toxins produced by the genus Tistrella of marine bacteria.

Aquaculture

Aquaculture of A. albicans has not been economically feasible .

Notes and References

1. Mayer . Alejandro M.S. . Glaser . Keith B. . Cuevas . Carmen . Jacobs . Robert S. . Kem . William . Little . R. Daniel . McIntosh . J. Michael . Newman . David J. . Potts . Barbara C. . Shuster . Dale E. . The odyssey of marine pharmaceuticals: a current pipeline perspective . . . 31 . 6 . 2010 . 0165-6147 . 10.1016/j.tips.2010.02.005 . 255–265. 20363514 .
2. Bruno . B . Giaccone . L . Rotta . M . Anderson . K . Boccadoro . M . Novel targeted drugs for the treatment of multiple myeloma: from bench to bedside . Leukemia . . 19 . 10 . 2005-08-11 . 10.1038/sj.leu.2403905 . 1729–1738. 16094421 . 27618516 . free .
3. Molinski . Tadeusz F. . Dalisay . Doralyn S. . Lievens . Sarah L. . Saludes . Jonel P. . Drug development from marine natural products . Nature Reviews . Nature . 8 . 1 . 2008-12-19 . 1474-1776 . 10.1038/nrd2487 . 69–85. 19096380 . 3333631 .
4. Ptak . Carolyn . Petronis . Arturas . Epigenetics and Complex Disease: From Etiology to New Therapeutics . . . 48 . 1 . 2008-02-01 . 0362-1642 . 10.1146/annurev.pharmtox.48.113006.094731 . 257–276. 17883328 .
5. McCauley . Erin P. . Piña . Ivett C. . Thompson . Alyssa D. . Bashir . Kashif . Weinberg . Miriam . Kurz . Shannon L. . Crews . Phillip . Highlights of marine natural products having parallel scaffolds found from marine-derived bacteria, sponges, and tunicates . . Japan Antibiotics Research Association (Nature) . 73 . 8 . 2020-06-08 . 0021-8820 . 10.1038/s41429-020-0330-5 . 7276339 . 504–525. 32507851 .
6. Book: Pircher . Andreas . Steiner . Normann . Gunsilius . Eberhard . 12 Cytotoxics and Anti-angiogenics . . . 2019 . 10.1007/978-3-319-33673-2_12 . 327–347.
7. Book: Aniszewski, Tadeusz . Alkaloids: Chemistry, Biology, Ecology, and Applications . . Amsterdam . 2015 . 978-0-444-59433-4 . 908192049 . 365.