Cultivation of Marine Sponges

Abstract

There is increasing interest in biotechnological production of marine sponge biomass owing to the discovery of many commercially important secondary metabolites in this group of animals. In this article, different approaches to producing sponge biomass are reviewed, and several factors that possibly influence culture success are evaluated. In situ sponge aquacultures, based on old methods for producing commercial bath sponges, are still the easiest and least expensive way to obtain sponge biomass in bulk. However, success of cultivation with this method strongly depends on the unpredictable and often suboptimal natural environment. Hence, a better-defined production system would be desirable. Some progress has been made with culturing sponges in semicontrolled systems, but these still use unfiltered natural seawater. Cultivation of sponges under completely controlled conditions has remained a problem. When designing an in vitro cultivation method, it is important to determine both qualitatively and quantitatively the nutritional demands of the species that is to be cultured. An adequate supply of food seems to be the key to successful sponge culture. Recently, some progress has been made with sponge cell cultures. The advantage of cell cultures is that they are completely controlled and can easily be manipulated for optimal production of the target metabolites. However, this technique is still in its infancy: a continuous cell line has yet to be established. Axenic cultures of sponge aggregates (primmorphs) may provide an alternative to cell culture. Some sponge metabolites are, in fact, produced by endosymbiotic bacteria or algae that live in the sponge tissue. Only a few of these endosymbionts have been cultivated so far. The biotechnology for the production of sponge metabolites needs further development. Research efforts should be continued to enable commercial exploitation of this valuable natural resource in the near future.

Formulation of a Basal Medium for Primary Cell Culture of the Marine Sponge Hymeniacidon perleve

“…NaCl concentration affects the salinity of the culture medium. Salinity is related to the osmotic pressure, which is an important factor in culture medium (22). The average salinity of seawater is ca.…”

“…The dissolved oxygen in this basal modified ASW medium is about 7.60 mg/L whereas that in ASW is 6.75 mg/L at 21.1°C. It has been reported that the oxygen consumption ranges from 0.2 to 2.5 µM‚h -1 per cubic centimeter of sponge volume (22). Oxygen is also shown as a morphogenic factor and affects the level of the tyrosinase gene expression in the sponge S. domuncula (29).…”

Cultivation of Marine Sponges with Pharmaceutical Value: Status and Future Prospects in India

“…(reviewed by Bell, 2008). The potential application of sponges are extensive without doubt; however, the actual issue is the supply of requisite biomass (Osinga et al, 1999;Thakur and Muller, 2004) as these invertebrates produce metabolites in trace quantities.…”

“…He described basic sponge culture methods in sea by using sponge cuttings attached to aluminium wire with artificial substrate in sea. The procedures described by Moore (1910) are still being used worldwide to produce commercial bath sponges (Osinga et al, 1999).…”

“…Historical details by (Crawshay, 1939) reveal early attempts in sponge culture by Cavolini in 1785 and 1790, followed by Schmidt in 1862, Bucchich in 1864, and Harris in 1897 as none of these experiments yielded any serviceable data (Crawshay, 1939). Detailed studies on sponge culture back in early 1900's by (Moore, 1910;Crawshay, 1939) and detailed review of sponge farming by Osinga et al, (1999), Duckworth (2009), Yi et al, (2005) and Schippers et al, (2012) have given more insights on sponge farming methods and its importance across the world. Macmillan (1996) in his report on setting up of commercial sponge farm describes sponge culture as easy, profitable and environment friendly.…”