Study Unlocks Soft Corals’ Biomedical Potential

Some corals produce chemicals called diterpenoids that have shown promise in fighting cancer and reducing inflammation, but researchers have been unable to study the chemicals in depth. The problem is that the chemicals are produced in tiny amounts by slow-growing and uncommon corals, making it environmentally destructive and impractical to supply enough of the compounds to test or produce new drugs. Now, a new study led by scientists at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography may finally unlock these corals’ chemical potential. The study found a cluster of five genes responsible for the production of diterpenoids across multiple species of a type of coral called octocorals. Discovering this gene cluster enables biochemists to produce the octocoral compounds in the lab and investigate their potential as medicines or other products. The research, published today in Nature Chemical Biology, was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation and NOAA.“Corals produce unique chemical compounds not seen in the terrestrial world, so there is lots of excitement to study their biomedical potential,” said Bradley Moore, the study’s senior author and a marine chemist with joint appointments at Scripps Oceanography, where he is the director of the Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine, and UC San Diego’s Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. “Unfortunately, it is super challenging to get enough supply directly from nature. With the genetic blueprint for producing these chemicals now in hand, the door is open to solve the supply issue and discover new compounds that could benefit humankind.”