			Home About us Contact

Marine Worms (marine + worm)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Life Sciences	80%

Selected Abstracts

A convenient racemic synthesis of two isomeric tetrahydropyridyl alkaloids: Isoanatabine and anatabine

JOURNAL OF HETEROCYCLIC CHEMISTRY, Issue 3 2010
Anne Rouchaud
Anatabine is a major alkaloid in Nicotiana tabacum and its isomer, isoanatabine, was recently found in a marine worm. Reduction of 1-methylpyridinium iodide with sodium borohydride gave 1-methyl-3-piperideine, which was transformed with hydrogen peroxide into the N -oxide. Reaction of the N -oxide successively with trifluoroacetic anhydride and potassium cyanide gave 2-cyano-1-methyl-3-piperideine. Its reaction with 3-pyridylmagnesium chloride gave (±)- N- methyl-isoanatabine. This was transformed with m -chloroperbenzoic acid into the N -oxide which was N -demethylated with iron(II) sulfate, giving (±)-isoanatabine. The successive applications of literature procedures for the N -demethylation by decomposition of N -oxide contributed to the knowledge of the mechanism of this oxidative rearrangement. On the other hand, the reduction of 1-methylpyridinium iodide with sodium borohydride and with potassium cyanide present since the start of the reaction in a two layer ether-water system, gave 2-cyano-1-methyl-4-piperideine. This was transformed into (±)-anatabine by the same sequence of reactions used for the synthesis of (±)-isoanatabine. J. Heterocyclic Chem., (2010). [source]

Reverse dissimilatory sulfite reductase as phylogenetic marker for a subgroup of sulfur-oxidizing prokaryotes

ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY, Issue 2 2009
Alexander Loy
Summary Sulfur-oxidizing prokaryotes (SOP) catalyse a central step in the global S-cycle and are of major functional importance for a variety of natural and engineered systems, but our knowledge on their actual diversity and environmental distribution patterns is still rather limited. In this study we developed a specific PCR assay for the detection of dsrAB that encode the reversely operating sirohaem dissimilatory sulfite reductase (rDSR) and are present in many but not all published genomes of SOP. The PCR assay was used to screen 42 strains of SOP (most without published genome sequence) representing the recognized diversity of this guild. For 13 of these strains dsrAB was detected and the respective PCR product was sequenced. Interestingly, most dsrAB -encoding SOP are capable of forming sulfur storage compounds. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated largely congruent rDSR and 16S rRNA consensus tree topologies, indicating that lateral transfer events did not play an important role in the evolutionary history of known rDSR. Thus, this enzyme represents a suitable phylogenetic marker for diversity analyses of sulfur storage compound-exploiting SOP in the environment. The potential of this new functional gene approach was demonstrated by comparative sequence analyses of all dsrAB present in published metagenomes and by applying it for a SOP census in selected marine worms and an alkaline lake sediment. [source]

Interspecific evolution: microbial symbiosis, endosymbiosis and gene transfer

ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY, Issue 8 2003
Meike Hoffmeister
Summary Microbial symbioses are interesting in their own right and also serve as exemplary models to help biologists to understand two important symbioses in the evolutionary past of eukaryotic cells: the origins of chloroplasts and mitochondria. Most, if not all, microbial symbioses have a chemical basis: compounds produced by one partner are useful for the other. But symbioses can also entail the transfer of genes from one partner to the other, which in some cases cements two cells into a bipartite, co-evolving unit. Here, we discuss some microbial symbioses in which progress is being made in uncovering the nature of symbiotic interactions: anaerobic methane-oxidizing consortia, marine worms that possess endosymbionts instead of a digestive tract, amino acid-producing endosymbionts of aphids, prokaryotic endosymbionts living within a prokaryotic host within mealybugs, endosymbionts of an insect vector of human disease and a photosynthetic sea slug that steals chloroplasts from algae. In the case of chloroplasts and mitochondria, examples of recent and ancient gene transfer to the chromosomes of their host cell illustrate the process of genetic merger in the wake of organelle origins. [source]

Mitogenomics and phylogenomics reveal priapulid worms as extant models of the ancestral Ecdysozoan

EVOLUTION AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 6 2006
Bonnie L. Webster
SUMMARY Research into arthropod evolution is hampered by the derived nature and rapid evolution of the best-studied out-group: the nematodes. We consider priapulids as an alternative out-group. Priapulids are a small phylum of bottom-dwelling marine worms; their tubular body with spiny proboscis or introvert has changed little over 520 million years and recognizable priapulids are common among exceptionally preserved Cambrian fossils. Using the complete mitochondrial genome and 42 nuclear genes from Priapulus caudatus, we show that priapulids are slowly evolving ecdysozoans; almost all these priapulid genes have evolved more slowly than nematode orthologs and the priapulid mitochondrial gene order may be unchanged since the Cambrian. Considering their primitive bodyplan and embryology and the great conservation of both nuclear and mitochondrial genomes, priapulids may deserve the popular epithet of "living fossil." Their study is likely to yield significant new insights into the early evolution of the Ecdysozoa and the origins of the arthropods and their kin as well as aiding inference of the morphology of ancestral Ecdysozoa and Bilateria and their genomes. [source]

Ultrastructure of Gnathostomaria lutheri Ax (Gnathostomulida: Scleroperalia).I.

MARINE ECOLOGY, Issue 1-2 2001
An Hypothesis About the Origin of Micropodia in Scleroperalian Sperm
Abstract. Initially described as an aberrant taxon of turbellarian flatworms, the Gnathostomulida were recognized as a distinct phylum by Rupert Riedl already in 1969. Yet these microscopic, non-segmented marine worms remain organisms of enigmatic phylogenetic affiliation, and although they are often the dominant invertebrate taxon in detritus-rich, oxygen-poor sands, our knowledge of their biology is still very scanty. About 90 gnathostomulid species are known to date; they are grouped in two orders, one with two suborders. Sperm structure, often a useful instrument for clarifying evolutionary pathways in metazoan taxa, differs so widely between the orders and suborders that sperm phylogeny within the Gnathostomulida also remains uncertain. We here report on the ultrastructural features of a peculiar type of sperm, the aflagellar "megasperm" of Gnathostomaria lutheri, and discuss new and older interpretations of sperm cytology of the taxon. [source]