Microbial diversity in the marine sponge Aplysina cavernicola (formerly Verongia cavernicola) analyzed by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH)

The HMA-LMA Dichotomy Revisited: an Electron Microscopical Survey of 56 Sponge Species

“…1A) and Spheciospongia vesparium (Fig. 1B) as well as elsewhere, for example, for the order Verongida (Vacelet, 1975;Friedrich et al, 1999). Our data support the results of Weisz et al (2008) but disagree with those of Popell et al (2013) in that S. vesparium is classified here as an HMA sponge.…”

“…1C). Some of these originally described morphotypes (i.e., types A and C according to Vacelet, 1975, andFriedrich et al, 1999) can readily be identified in the present pictures of HMA sponge tissue. The amount of bacteria in the HMA sponge tissues can, however, be variable, ranging from densely packed mesohyl tissues for the order Verongida (Fig.…”

“…2F). Occasionally, bacterial morphotypes were observed in TEM pictures of LMA sponges (Gloeckner et al, 2013a); however, the morphotype diversity appeared unlike that of HMA sponges in that the compartmentalized cells and those with unusual membranes were missing (Vacelet, 1975;Friedrich et al, 1999). Therefore, on the basis of electron microscopical observations, the combination of bacterial abundance and morphotype diversity determines whether a sponge species belongs to the HMA or LMA category.…”

Comparative Study of the Secondary Metabolites of Sponge-derived Aspergillus flavus

“…The quest to exploit factors leading to the production of diverse molecular structures from cultured microorganisms represents a continuing challenge for natural products research (Firn and Jones, 2003) Filter-feeding marine invertebrates, such as sponges, have been shown to host a variety of microorganisms that do not merely reflect the microbial communities present in the surrounding seawater but appear to constitute a more specialized association between sponge hosts and microbial associates (Friedrich et al, 1999). An early, conservative estimate based upon thousands of assayed sponge species suggested that as many as 11% produce cytotoxic compounds (Garson, 1994).…”

Isolation, cytotoxic activity and phylogenetic analysis of <i>Bacillus sp.</i> bacteria associated with the red sea sponge <i>Amphimedon ochracea</i>

“…Some sponge-derived metabolites reveal striking similarity to known microbial metabolites, and it has been hypothesized that many natural products from marine invertebrates may be of microbial origin [10]. Microorganisms play a central role in sponge biology: they serve as food particles and are found to live associated with many sponges inter-and intracellularly [11,12]. The diversity of microbes known from sponges was categorized in 14 recognized bacterial phyla (and one candidate phylum), both major archaeal lineages, and assorted microbial eukaryotes.…”