Exploration of the chemodiversity and microbial composition in marine sponges

The marine sponge holobiont, comprising of the invertebrate eukaryotic sponge animal and the microbial symbionts, is a prolific producer of small organic molecules called natural products. The tremendous structural diversity of sponge-derived natural products coupled with their favorable biological activities have attracted attention from organic synthetic chemists and pharmaceutical industries. Traditional bioassay guided fractionation approaches have the sustained the vast repository of more than 11,000 sponge-derived natural products. Herein, the use of high-resolution accurate spectrometry and metabolomics-based tools have revealed the chemodiversity in marine sponges that have evaded discovery. Marine sponges boast of an exceptionally rich and diverse associated microbiota, which oftentimes are the true natural product production units. Therefore, profiling the microbial composition in marine sponges will provide important insights into the biosynthetic potential of the sponge holobiont. Further, the thesis dissertation outlines the necessity of using multi-omics-based strategies to generate and support hypotheses towards potential natural product producer organisms and provides a framework for future biochemical studies.Ph.D