Summary
Many marine organisms are able to produce viscous mucus layer on their surface, generally constituted of polysaccharides and proteins. The ecological roles of mucus have been widely investigated and a broad spectrum of its functions (e.g., adhesion enhancement, water preservation, movement helping, and heterotrophic feeding) have been proven. Sessile marine invertebrates are among those organisms that adopt the mucus production as a survival strategy. Being fixed to substrata they are highly vulnerable to external disturbing factors or attacks from potential pathogens, predators and parasites. Mucus properties are mainly due to the enzymes and metabolites contained in its matrix, most of which providing a disgusting, poisonous or urticant nature to mucus producers. A lot of bioactive antimicrobials, antiadhesives and defence molecules have been discovered in the mucus of different marine invertebrate species.

Objectives
The production of metabolites by higher organisms is often correlated to the associated microbiota, and bacteria are the real responsible for the biosynthetic processes. Furthermore, as the need for new molecules or new producers is increasing, the exploration of under-investigated environments is encouraged. If a lot of questions still remain in the comprehension of ecological significance and chemically mediated interactions at the base of mucus production and properties, this gap in knowledge is particularly remarkable in polar environments. In this context, the project POLAR SLIMY aims at chemically characterizing the mucus produced by the Antarctic sponges Mycale acerata and Dendrilla antarctica and to investigate its potential bioactivities.
Main POLAR SLIMY objectives are:
1) Chemical characterization of mucus samples;
2) Extraction of bioactive molecules from mucus samples;
3) Establishing the bioactivity of mucus samples and mucus crude extracts.
Data analysis is in progress.

Project Partners
• Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Messina, Italy
• Centro de Ciências do Mar (CCMAR), Algarve, Portugal

Other informations
• ASSEMBLE Plus