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A
non-stick slime made by starfish may lead to new treatments for asthma,arthritis, hay
fever and other inflammatory conditions, say marine
biologists in Scotland.
The scientists, from the Scottish Association for Marine Science
(SAMS) in Oban, Argyll, have been studying the slime produced by
the spiny starfish,Marthasterias glacialis, commonly
found in the waters around Scotland and other parts of the
British Isles, and say it could be vital for treating human
infections.
Lead researcher Dr Charlie Bavington, founder and managing
director of Glycomar, a marine biotechnology company based at
SAMS, has been talking to the media about their work.
In an interview with the BBC aired on Thursday 9 December, he
demonstrated how the starfish produced the slime: he took a
starfish with a span of about 30 cm or 12 in out of a tank, held
it, after a few seconds the slime began visibly to ooze from the
creature's spiny body.
The slime is a defence mechanism and also prevents debris from
sticking to the starfish.
Bavington said the compound they were interested in was only
part of the starfish's "goo"; he showed BBC reporter Rebecca
Morelle the purified compound, which looks like a white powder,
and explained that they are planning to work with chemists to
produce a man-made version.
They are hoping that the compound can do for blood vessels what
it does for the starfish: stop things sticking to them.
Inflammatory conditions like asthma and arthritis are what
happens when the body's natural immune response to infection
overreacts and white blood cells stick to and build up on the
inside walls of blood vessels, damaging tissue.
Starfish are continually bathed in micro-organisms, bacteria,
larvae, and viruses looking to set up camp on their spiny skin.
But the slime that they secrete protects them from this
continual onslaught by making their skin too slippery:
"... starfish are better than Teflon: they have a very efficient
anti-fouling surface that prevents things from sticking," said
Bavington, according to a report in The Scotsman.
He said they want to see if the compounds they have isolated
from the starfish slime could be developed into a drug that
coats blood vessels to create the same effect and allow white
blood cells to flow through without sticking to the sides.
"In humans cells stick from a flowing medium to a blood vessel
wall, so we thought we could learn something from how starfish
prevent this so we could find a way to prevent it in humans,"
explained Bavington.
Clive Page, professor of pharmacology at King's College London,
is working with Bavington on this. He said discovering this
substance in the starfish slime has dramatically shortened the
usual timescale for developing a new treatment:
"The starfish have effectively done a lot of the hard work for
us," said Page, explaining that normally scientists have to
screen hundreds of compounds before they find such a lead.
The starfish has had "billions of years in evolution to come up
with molecules that do specific things," he added.
The field of research that this kind of discovery belongs to is
called glycobiology, a branch of biology that studies the
structure, biosynthesis and function of sugar chains or
saccharides, for which there is increasing interest because of
the important role they play in cells.
Saccharides exist on cell surfaces, they mediate interaction
between cells, and also between cells and the extracellular
matrix and effector molecules.
Studies in this field are opening up possibilities for the
discovery of new drugs made from saccharides or other molecules
that target the biosynthesis and function of saccharides.
Biotech companies like GlycoMar specialize in the glycobiology
of sea creatures as opposed to land animals to find compounds
for new drugs.
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