Question

Discodermolide is an anticancer drug produced by marine sponges. What are some potential negative impacts of getting this drug from sponges? How might scientists overcome this?

Answer 1

The right answer is The too small amount of substance secreted by these species has led scientists to seek to synthesize it chemically.

Discodermolide is a natural polyketide that is involved in the stabilization of microtubules. It acts as an immunosuppressant both in vitro and in vivo as a powerful inducer of an accelerated senescence phenotype, and as a cytostatic agent in synergy with other drugs. It is one of the most powerful promoters of tubulin assembly. Its interesting biological properties and its extreme rarity in the natural environment (barely 20 ppm by weight in the frozen marine sponge) have pushed to achieve its total synthesis, which now provides all of the discodermolide clinical and preclinical studies.

Answer 2

Discodermolide is an anticancer drug that is extracted from deep sea sponges. It is an important anti-proliferative drug which is used in case of cancer.

Some of the potential negative impacts of getting this drug from sponges is that it gets destroyed and the marine ecosystem is disturbed due to human interventions.

To overcome this problem, the scientist make sure that the coral and the sponges does not gets disturbed during the time of extraction of this compound.