What Sea Cucumbers Can Teach Us about Self-Defense
Summary
Genome mining techniques have helped to explain how sea cucumbers produce defensive chemicals that enable them to fend off foes in the murky depths. Analysis showed that an enzyme found across all kingdoms of life that makes sterols, essential for building membranes and hormones, was missing in sea cucumber. This showed that the genes have acquired new functions; one of them makes an alternative type of saponin that the sea cucumber uses for self-defense, and the other produces molecules that protect the creature from the toxic effects of its own chemicals. They have a wide range of uses, traditionally as a source of soap and more recently as vaccine adjuvants, foaming agents, antifungal treatments, and emulsifiers. Professor Anne Osbourn, a group leader at the John Innes Centre, and corresponding author of the study said: “Sea cucumbers are massively important in Asia as a health benefiting food source and for traditional medicines.