College
College of Arts & Sciences
Mentor Information
Bill Baker
Description
Marine organisms produce chemically diverse metabolites that have significant pharmaceutical potential which makes them great sources of inspiration for future drug development. However, collecting marine organisms is costly, time-consuming, and ecologically problematic, making preserved museum specimens a valuable alternative for natural products research. In this study, the deep-sea octocoral Paragorgia arborea, obtained from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, was selected for further chemical analysis due to its antiviral activity against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) with no detectable cytotoxicity to healthy cells. The extract was purified through high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and resulting fractions were analyzed using mass spectrometry (MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Computational analysis using SMART, SPECTRE, and DeepSat identified metabolites, while GNPS molecular networking was used to further examine the chemical composition of the extract. These findings demonstrate the potential of museum-preserved specimens as a valuable resource for marine natural products discovery. Future work will focus on characterizing additional fractions and evaluating their biological activity.
A Study of Secondary Metabolites from the Deep Sea Bubblegum Coral Paragorgia arborea
Marine organisms produce chemically diverse metabolites that have significant pharmaceutical potential which makes them great sources of inspiration for future drug development. However, collecting marine organisms is costly, time-consuming, and ecologically problematic, making preserved museum specimens a valuable alternative for natural products research. In this study, the deep-sea octocoral Paragorgia arborea, obtained from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, was selected for further chemical analysis due to its antiviral activity against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) with no detectable cytotoxicity to healthy cells. The extract was purified through high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and resulting fractions were analyzed using mass spectrometry (MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Computational analysis using SMART, SPECTRE, and DeepSat identified metabolites, while GNPS molecular networking was used to further examine the chemical composition of the extract. These findings demonstrate the potential of museum-preserved specimens as a valuable resource for marine natural products discovery. Future work will focus on characterizing additional fractions and evaluating their biological activity.
