Marine Sponge-Associated Microbiome: Reservoir of Novel Bioactive Compounds

Abstract

Oceans consist of around half a million to ten million species out of which sponges, being the oldest and almost omnipresent of the marine metazoans, make an integral part of marine benthic biodiversity and play an important role in benthic–pelagic coupling. Sponges are the most popular invertebrate microbial hosts of today. A symbiotic relationship between the two is predicted. Sponge-associated microbes in league with the sponges themselves are believed to produce a large array of bioactive compounds. However, the true origin of most of these compounds is still ambiguous and remains a key issue in further developmental stages of biotechnological applications. Also most of the microorganisms associated with marine sponges remain so far uncultivable. Today, with advances in the molecular biology techniques, nearly complete microbial diversity can be accessed for understanding diversity and abundance within the microbiome, and functional screening approaches based on homology-based screening give further insights into the specific traits which may be useful in the discovery of novel natural products.