Organisms as a Source of Drugs

People have long used marine organisms as the source of a limited number of synthetic products used in everyday life. Perhaps the most famous of these organisms has been the mollusk Murex bran-dans, from which a beautiful purple dye can he extracted. The dye is obtained from a small organ of the mollusk (the hypobranchial gland), and its preparation is so expensive that it was traditionally used as a dye only for clothing worn by the nobility. For that reason, the dye was called royal purple or, more commonly, Tyrian purple, after the region from which it is obtained. 

Another commercially available product containing naturally occurring marine products is Formulaid , produced by Martek Biosciences as a nutritional supplement for infant formulas. Formulaid contains two fatty acids, arachidonic acid (ARA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), extracted from a variety of marine microalgae. ARA and DHA are the most abundant polyunsaturated fatty acids found in breast milk, and they are the most important fatty acids used in the development of brain gray matter. They are especially desirable for use in infant formulas because they come from nonmeat sources and can be advertised as vegetarian additives to the product. 

An especially intriguing pair of products obtained from marine organisms in recent years are Vent and Deep Vent DNA polymerase. These products are used in DNA research studies. Their special feature is that they are at least 10 times as efficient as other similar products in polymerase chain reactions because they can tolerate temperatures just below the boiling point of water, a characteristic that comparable research tools lack. Vent and Deep Vent DNA polymerases are obtained from the bacterium Thermococcus litoralis, which is found around deep-sea hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean. 

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