Phylogenetic diversity of culturable fungi associated with two marine sponges: Haliclona simulans and Gelliodes carnosa, collected from the Hainan Island coastal waters of the South China Sea

Abstract

The diversity and biological activities of fungi associated with the two sponges, Haliclona simulans and Gelliodes carnosa, were investigated using a culturedependent method followed by analysis of the fungal rDNA-ITS sequences. The two sponges were collected from the coastal waters of Lingshui Bay of Hainan Island in the South China Sea. A total of 37 independent fungal isolates corresponding to 30 different species were obtained from the two sponges. Nearly two thirds of the strains (n=24, 64.9%) had close affiliations (identity (ID) or similarity≥98%) with their best matches in GenBank. Another one third of the isolates (n=13, 35.1%) were distantly related to their closest relatives (ID<98%), implying that these species are possibly different from those previously reported. The two sponges possessed similar fungal diversities. Haliclona simulans harbored a mainly different fungal consortium as compared with that of the same sponge species collected from Irish coastal waters, suggesting that the fungal diversity associated with the sponges is more dependent on the surrounding environment than on the sponge species. Biological activities of the fungal culture extracts were tested against the human tumor cell lines, mainly, a human lung carcinoma cell line (A-549), a human liver carcinoma cell line (Bel-7402), and a human colon carcinoma cell line (HCT-8), and against the Gram positive bacterium Bacillus subtilis. A relatively high proportion of positive results were obtained in this study, demonstrating that fungi isolated from sponges could be a rich source of new biologically active natural products.

Phylogenetic Diversity of Sponge-Associated Fungi from the Caribbean and the Pacific of Panama and Their In Vitro Effect on Angiotensin and Endothelin Receptors

“…Culture-based and isolationindependent methods have shown a large diversity of fungi associated with sponges and have demonstrated that fungal community composition differs between sponge species and the surrounding water (Li and Wang 2009;Gao et al 2008). The majority of the identified cultivable fungi associated with sponges belongs to the phylum Ascomycota with Eurotiales and Hypocreales as the most abundant orders within the phylum (Li and Wang 2009;Baker et al 2009;Liu et al 2010;Ding et al 2011;Wiese et al 2011). In addition, the order Capnodiales was the major representative in two sponge species classified in the order Haplosclerida collected in the South China Sea (Liu et al 2010).…”

“…The majority of the identified cultivable fungi associated with sponges belongs to the phylum Ascomycota with Eurotiales and Hypocreales as the most abundant orders within the phylum (Li and Wang 2009;Baker et al 2009;Liu et al 2010;Ding et al 2011;Wiese et al 2011). In addition, the order Capnodiales was the major representative in two sponge species classified in the order Haplosclerida collected in the South China Sea (Liu et al 2010). Overall, there is strong evidence that the diversity of genera and the number of isolates per sponge varies greatly among different locations.…”

“…Overall, there is strong evidence that the diversity of genera and the number of isolates per sponge varies greatly among different locations. Although it has been suggested that culture-based methods overlook a large diversity of fungi (Richards et al 2012), culture-based methods continue to be favored by research programs aimed at studying the biotechnological potential of fungi (Caballero-George et al 2010;Kjer et al 2010;Liu et al 2010;Blunt et al 2009). …”

Diversity of fungi associated with plants growing in geothermal ecosystems and evaluation of their capacities to enhance thermotolerance of host plants

“…Only bootstrap values above 50% were shown, and only those above 70% were considered significant (Liu et al 2010). The phylogenetic tree was rooted using Chytriomyces hyalinus as an outgroup (GenBank accession number DQ536499.1).…”

Ultrastructural evidence of a fungus-sponge association in the Ligurian Sea: a case study ofClathrina coriacea(Porifera: Calcarea)

“…Fungi associated with marine sponges have been frequently observed from temperate, tropical and polar waters (Gao et al 2008;Wang et al 2008;Baker et al 2009;Lie & Wang 2009;Liu et al 2010;Menezes et al 2010;Paz et al 2010;Ding et al 2011;Wiese et al 2011;Zhou et al 2011;Suryanarayanan 2012;Thirunavukkarasu et al 2012;Henriquez et al 2013). Their diversity was mainly explored in order to assess the potential for the production of novel active secondary metabolites with biological activity (Höller et al 2000;Henriquez et al 2013) and, consequently, the real biological significance of the relationships remains unclear.…”