Steve Frey's Sponge replication theory

[Steve Frey]

Humble sea sponge can advance stem cell research

July 29, 2009

SYDNEY - The humble sea sponge could potentially advance stem cell research, according to scientists.


Led by Bernie Degnan, professor at the University of Queensland (UQ), the research team found sponges had stem cells remarkably similar to those currently being tested for use in regenerative medicine in humans.

It turns out that sponges have features which we try to engineer, Degnan said.

Basically the reason people are attracted to embryonic stem cells is because they have the potential to give rise to a whole lot of other cell types and, using sponges, we’re trying to figure out how that actually happens at the most fundamental levels.

Making stem cells that can turn into any cell type in the body is like the Holy Grail in stem cell medicine. Sea sponges make stem cells with this capacity every day.

By identifying the similarities between sponge and human stem cells, the researchers may be able to reveal the most important features of stem cell function.

Degnan said because sponges and humans came from the same ancestor, any common features must have survived about 600 million years of evolution.

Any features that we find in sponges and in humans, we can infer they existed before sponges and humans went their separate ways on the tree of life, he said.

The fact that these common features exist in sponges and humans must tell us that they’re really important because these things split apart 600 million years ago and the features are still here.

“For example nearly 95 percent of all genes associated with human disease can be found in sponges, Degnan said.

He also added that influencing the direction of stem cell research was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to the abilities sea sponges possessed.

Humble sea sponge can advance stem cell research | Umbilical Cord Blood Stem Cells

[Steve Frey]

No Sponge In Human Family Tree: Sponges Descended From Unique Ancestor

ScienceDaily (Apr. 3, 2009) — Since the days of Charles Darwin, researchers are interested in reconstructing the "Tree of Life", and in understanding the development of animal and plant species during their evolutionary history. In the case of vertebrates, this research has already come quite a long way. But there is still much debate about the relationships between the animal groups that made their apparation very early in evolutionary history, probably in the late Precambrian, some 650 to 540 million years ago.

An international research group led by LMU Munich Geobiology Professor Gert Wörheide and colleagues from France and Canada has now managed to explain the relationships between some of these very early animal groups with a high degree of confidence. In the most comprehensive study of its kind, the researchers show that all sponges descended from a unique sponge ancestor, who in turn was not the ancestor of all other animals. That means that humans did not descend from a sponge-like organism either, as some scientists have put forward. Moreover, the results also suggest that the nervous system only evolved once in animal history.
The most ancient animal groups (phyla) include the Porifera (sponges), Placozoa, Cnidaria, and Ctenophora (comb jellies). The sponges are extremely simply built, and have no organs. The placozoans also have a very simple structure. They have a flat, disk-shaped body, and no organs either. Comb jellies, the ctenophores, are life forms that resemble jellyfish. The true jellyfish, however, are part of the cnidarians, a phylum that also includes corals and sea anemones. The exact relationships among these early animal groups are still controversial, as different research groups have often obtained conflicting results. In particular, results from morphological studies, which look for structural similarities between different organisms, frequently contradict the results from molecular biological studies. The latter explore the functions of genes, and deduce phylogenetic relationships from gene sequences.
Aiming to resolve these controversies, a group of international scientists led by Hervé Philippe (Université de Montréal, Canada), Gert Wörheide (LMU Munich, Germany) and Michael Manuel (University of Paris, France) performed the most comprehensive study to date and investigated 128 genes from a total of 55 species – including nine poriferans, eight cnidarians, three ctenophores and the single known species of placozoans. Their analyses were based on a relatively new approach called phylogenomics, which determines the evolutionary relationships of life forms by comparing large datasets of gene sequences. Together with biochemists, evolutionary and computational biologists from Germany, France and Canada, the team analyzed more than 30,000 amino acid positions. Using computer analyses, the researchers then estimated a phylogenetic tree that displays how related the studied animals are.
One of the most significant outcomes of this study is new evidence that all species of sponges are descendants of a single ancestor. On the other hand, Bilateria, which include worms, mollusks, insects, and vertebrates, did not descend directly from this "spongy" ancestor. "If the ancestral animal would have had a sponge-like organization or body, as some earlier molecular studies repeatedly claimed, then we would all be descendents of such sponge-like organisms," explains Wörheide. "This proposition generated a lot of attention in the past. But our results clearly disagree with it." The analyses also revealed that ctenophores and cnidarians most likely belong to a common group. "This group, the "coelenterates", is most closely related to the bilaterians," explains Wörheide. "Our results support, after much controversy, a hypothesis that was already formulated back in 1848."
The investigation also provides new insights into the development of individual organ systems. "Both coelenterates and bilaterians already have nerve cells. Their now corroborated close relationship also suggests that the nervous system developed only once in animal history," Wörheide states. And yet, another recent and less comprehensive study concerning the non-bilaterians proposed the unorthodox hypothesis that the comb jellies had already diverged from all other species even before the sponges. "Since the comb jellies already have nerve and muscle cells, this would suggest that these features developed several times independently in animal history, or that they were lost in sponges and placozoans," explains the LMU researcher.
This new study, which compared more evolutionarily ancient life forms than ever before, presents a stimulating framework for future studies. "Our results can now be used to explore how certain key features evolved among animals," says Wörheide. There is evidence, for example, that part of the genetic toolkit responsible for building the nervous system in other animals was already present in sponges. Similarly, eye-like sensory organs can already be detected in box jellyfish. "One of the goals of future studies will now be to find out how and when the genetic toolkit for the nervous system, muscles and sensory organs evolved in animal history," Wörheide concludes.

No Sponge In Human Family Tree: Sponges Descended From Unique Ancestor

[Steve Frey]

Marine Sponge leads Researchers to Anti-Tumor Compound

Researchers have discovered the mammalian counterpart to a previously discovered glycosphingolipid derived from a sea sponge that, in an amazing coincidence of nature, activates natural killer (NK) T cells, which play a key role in helping the immune system fight cancer.
"It is remarkable that this marine sponge contains within it antitumor properties, a product that has such an impact on vertebrates," says Albert Bendelac, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Pathology, whose research was published in the December 3, 2004, issue of Science. "This sponge glycolipid doesn't occur in mammals, but it provided us with a guide to find similar natural activators for the NKT cells in humans, which we have done."

The first known substance to fully activate NKT cells, alpha-galactosylceramide, the glycosphingolipid derived from an Okinawan sea sponge Agelas mauritianus, was discovered to trigger an anti-tumor response in mice. This discovery led researchers towards the identification of the mammalian counterpart. Dapeng Zhou, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow in the Bendelac lab, first isolated a key family of proteins called saposins in collaboration with researchers from Scripps Research Institute and Brigham Young University and then focused his efforts on known targets for these saposins, which included the natural ligand iGb3.

The discovery of iGb3 will allow researchers to explore how this compound is produced in some, but not all, tumors and may help explain why some tumors are more susceptible and others are resistant to attack by the immune system.

"Until now we had no idea what activated NKT cells, except for one curious compound, this marine sponge glycosphingolipid," Bendelac continues. "Our work has centered on learning more about this compound, working to find the naturally occurring mammalian counterpart and translating that into viable treatment options."

A purified synthetic version derived from the marine sponge glycolipid, a-GalCer or KRN 7000, is now in phase-2 human clinical trials. However, use of a-GalCer has been associated with NKT cell overstimulation, which leads to a rapid burst of activity and secretion of interferon-gamma. Essentially, the NKT cells activated by this compound fizzle and disappear from the body within a short amount of time.

"We are hoping that iGb3 will prove more useful than the synthetic version of the marine sponge glycolipid because there is an element of natural selection involved in its occurrence," concludes Bendelac. "The bottom line is that this naturally occurring element provides us with a great deal of information as we try to understand tumor creation and immune responses within the human body."

Peer Review | The Division of Biological Sciences, University of Chicago

[Steve Frey]

Trove of cancer-fighting sponges discovered in deep sea | Science Blog

[Kritters]

Thanks for posting that info on your sponge.

I have a coupla questions.

1- Could you be specific as to how you think Lyme disease is involved since so many people with Morgellons have it and other related Babs?

2- Check this out and tell me why it couldn't have to do with this as opposed to the sponge.

Thanks,
Kritts

BioEd Online Slides: "plasmid", somatic cell nuclear transfer, SCNT

(cloning)

[carla]

Steve I 'm sorry but everything you posted in this thread just goes to show they have been messing about the sponge for a long time .

[Steve Frey]

I am more than happy to answer your questions Kritt but in the future please try to limit the questions to one at a time. Some questions, such as this one, take a considerable amount of time to provide an answer with supporting documention, I will literally spend hours answering this question.

This will be the standard protocol in this thread for questions. If I'm hit with a bunch of questions I'm not going to be able to answer any of them sufficiently, and please think about the questions your asking, for example don't ask me how we got infected or why a certain group is infected, these are not fair questions since they are unanswerable in many diseases. Both of your's Kritt are very good questions.

I will answer your second question next.

Kritts Question

How is Lyme disease related to the Sponge replication theory?

My Answer

Ticks are from the Arthropoda Phylum, insects, and crustaceans are two of it's members. There is considerable evidence that the sponge has been manipulating life in this Phylum for a very long time, in fact I believe that it lies as the third most infected group of organisms next to fungi and bacteria, in that order.

Ticks, mites, beetles, flies, wasps, and mosquitos appear to have been severely manipulated by the sponge going as far back as hundreds of millions of years ago and I believe it continues to this day.

Just like in every other group of organisms that the sponge has manipulated, the Arthropoda Phylum also contains organisms that I believe are actually sponges in disguise and the deer tick is just one example. Other examples would be Drosophila the fruit fly, the common malaria mosquito, the parasitic wasp, and a black Rove beetle know as the devil's coach-horse beetle just to name a few.

Now since the scope of this theory is so large I've been very limited as to how much time I can spend on any one subject, this particular subject could surely use addition research.

For starters the deer tick is immune to the effects of the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi. Next, as in the case of the sponge, the deer tick also lives in "so-called" symbiosis with other organisms that reside in it's gut, predominantly bactera. I say "so-called" symbionts because I believe they are not symbionts of the deer tick but products of it.

Here is a list of Bacteria that have been isolated from deer ticks.






And here is a list of the Bacteria Phylums that have been isolated from sponges. Notice that every Bacteria phylum found in the tick is also found in the sponge.




Another piece of circumstantial evidence supporting this idea is the tick produced neurotoxin. The sponge is well known for it's production of neurotoxins.

Tick paralysis is a tick-borne disease affecting both humans and other animals, and it is characterized by the sudden onset of a progressive, ascending (starting in the lower body and moving up) paralysis. Unlike other tick-borne diseases, such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tick paralysis is not caused by an infectious agent (pathogen) but rather, is induced by a chemical substance that attacks the nervous system (neurotoxin). This neurotoxin is secreted by the salivary glands of certain tick species as they feed. Tick paralysis is relatively rare, but it can be fatal if the attached tick is not found and removed. The majority of cases occur in children

.
http://chppm-www.apgea.army.mil/ento...FactsJan05.pdf




Borrelia burgdorferi has an unusual relationship with the deer tick that involves a protein and escaping immune system detection. The sponge has a unique command of proteins and the ability to manipulate the immune system

, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, can commandeer a gene in its interim host--the deer tick--enabling the bacterium to escape immune detection once inside a mammal.

Lyme microbe forms convenient bond with tick protein. - Free Online Library

Marine sponge leads researchers to immune system...( k this enzyme have a severe NKT cell de...)





Also the deer tick has an interesting genome.

Despite its minuscule size, the deer tick has a genome two-thirds the size of a human genome.

When it comes to their genes, ticks have a lot of redundancy. Just as our bodies have developed numerous ways of clotting blood so wounds can begin to heal, ticks have developed multiple ways of stopping our blood from clotting so they can keep feeding for days.

UConn Advance - July 24, 2006 - Ticks’ tactics for spreading disease are focus of Health Center study

I'm just scratching the surface on this topic, I'm sure that if I, or anyone else, was to continue researching more correlations would come up.




This is an outstanding article on the subject of aponge associated organisms.

Sponge-Associated Microorganisms


Intracellular Symbionts and Other Bacteria Associated with Deer Ticks
(Ixodes scapularis) from Nantucket and Wellfleet, Cape Cod, Massachusetts




Here are some other articles that may also be pertinent to the theory but I am still getting around to reading them.

ScienceDirect - International Journal of Medical Microbiology Supplements : Pathogens and symbionts in ticks: prevalence of Anaplasma phagocytophilum (Ehrlichia sp.), Wolbachia sp., Rickettsia sp., and Babesia sp. in Southern Germany


A Mite Species That Consists Entirely of Haploid Females -- Weeks et al. 292 (5526): 2479 -- Science


Characterization of a 'Bacteroidetes' symbiont in Encarsia wasps (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae): proposal of 'Candidatus Cardinium hertigii' -- Zchori-Fein et al. 54 (3): 961 -- International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology

[Steve Frey]

Originally Posted by carla

Steve I 'm sorry but everything you posted in this thread just goes to show they have been messing about the sponge for a long time .

Whatever, all I know is there was no "THEY" to mess around with anything 2 or 3 or 4 hundred million years ago.

You know what carla, what I am suggestiing in regards to the sponge's manipulation of life is so much bigger than we are as an entire species that it's like comparing Earth to the Universe, we are nothing more than one victim amongst thousands and the time frame associated with humans is the blink of an eye. We cannot now, nor will we ever be able to accomplish what the sponge has done.

[Steve Frey]

The Ancestor’s Tale
Sponge research focuses on drug discovery and the origins of multicellularity
by Martin Colaco

To the average agent of kitchen cleanliness, the sponge does not evoke particularly strong feelings. However, the marine filter feeder of the same name—now only a spiritual cousin of the yellow and green dish-scrubbing staple—has been stirring the imaginations of biologists and engineers for a number of reasons. Though among the simplest of multicellular organisms, sponges produce a variety of molecules with anticancer, antiviral, and anti-inflammatory properties. Current research at UC Berkeley investigates the biology of sponges to understand their evolution and to learn how to manufacture their natural products.

In the 1950s, a number of previously unknown pharmaceutical products were discovered in sponges. Most of the compounds are produced in very low amounts, so harvesting the sponges from the wild to extract these compounds is impractical at best. However, these molecules are so complex that synthesizing them chemically is currently unachievable. Thus, learning how to grow sponges in a laboratory environment is critical to producing these chemicals in usable quantities. Sponges can grow under diverse conditions, thriving in fresh and salt water, in polar and tropical regions, and in deep seas and shallow waters; however, attempts to grow them in the lab, whether cultured as individual cells or as whole sponges, have been unsuccessful.

Detmer Sipkema, a postdoctoral fellow in Harvey Blanch’s lab in the chemical engineering department, has been working on this problem for four years. His research initially focused on culturing sponge cells, but he now works on growing sponge-associated bacteria. This is because it is not clear whether the valuable chemicals found in sponges are produced by the sponge cells themselves or by the sponges’ bacterial symbionts. Analyzing the DNA of samples from the sponge Haliclona (Gellius) sp., Sipkema was able to isolate 15 types of associated bacteria and has successfully cultured two of them. To culture the other 13 types, he is trying to “mimic certain microenvironments of the sponge to seduce them to grow.” For example, bacteria associated with the outer layers of the sponge might require light for optimal growth, while bacteria that live in the sponge’s center might prefer the dark. By providing the right environment for each type of bacterium, Sipkema believes that he can disprove the commonly held notion that “only one percent of bacteria from…sponges can be cultured.”

While Sipkema’s interest in sponges focuses on culturing individual sponge cells and the bacteria that associate with them, Scott Nichols, a postdoctoral fellow in Nicole King’s lab in the molecular and cell biology department, wants to understand how animals develop and evolve. To this end, sponges are of particular interest. They are among the simplest multicellular animals, and some of their cells are very similar to choanoflagellates, which are the closest living unicellular relative of animals [see “United We Stand”, BSR Spring 2006]. In addition, there is mounting evidence that all multicellular animals evolved from a sponge-like ancestor. Examining the traits that sponges share with animals but not with choanoflagellates could help reveal which traits developed first, and thus may be most important, in the evolution of more complex organisms.

“To develop multicellularity,” says Nichols, “[organisms] need cell communication and cell adhesion.” Other researchers have determined that a protein called beta-catenin is involved in both of these processes in more complex animals such as fruit flies and mice. In the presence of an external signal, beta-catenin helps regulate gene expression in the cell nucleus. This signaling pathway is critical to animal health, and its breakdown has been linked to cancer growth. Beta-catenin also serves a role in cell adhesion: Without it, a protein that attaches cells to one another cannot function.

Little is known about the mechanism of cell adhesion and signaling in sponges. Nichols recently discovered the beta-catenin gene in the sponge Oscarella carmela. In addition, he identified a number of other genes that are involved in cell adhesion or signaling in higher animals—for example, genes that are used in limb and tissue formation. Why sponges have these genes when they do not exhibit the body diversification of other animals is unclear, but Nichols’s early research indicates that beta-catenin is used for both cell signaling and cell adhesion in sponges. Confirmation of this hypothesis is difficult, Nichols says, because the molecular tools required to study gene expression and regulation have not been established for sponges as they have for other organisms.

Both Sipkema’s and Nichols’s research point to a fundamental limitation in sponge research: the lack of a model organism. Currently, there is no species of sponge that is readily available, easy to grow and work with, and to which modern techniques in biology can be applied. To date, most researchers have chosen to study sponge species based on whatever was most abundant in the wild, since they could not grow sponges in the lab. But both Sipkema and Nichols believe that, with enough researchers and time, it should be possible to culture sponge cells and their associated bacteria. A model sponge might give us a better understanding of how multicellular life began to develop in the past and at the same time provide us with the life-saving medications of the future.

The Berkeley Science Review: Articles

[Steve Frey]

Part 1

Sponges Get Respect

The next time you luxuriate in a tub with a piece of natural bath sponge resting on the soap dish nearby, consider this fact: One recently discovered species of sponge is a carnivore--adept at attacking, engulfing, killing and consuming flesh. Scientists discovered the species in 1994 in a Mediterranean marine cave about 12 miles from Marseille, France.

Asbestopluma hypogea has elongated filaments extending from a white oval body. Minute spikes of silica, called spicules, jut out from the filaments like tiny shards of glass. "The spicules act as hooks, so that small crustaceans are trapped as if the surface were Velcro," says marine biologist Jean Vacelet of the Marseille Oceanographic Center. Also, the sponge's cells can move around. And they do. "The cells of the sponge migrate as soon as the prey is trapped," Vacelet says. "After 24 hours, the prey is completely covered by sponge cells." The cells grab bits of meat, absorb them into their cytoplasm and move away to start digesting. The creature has no brain, no heart, no stomach, no muscles-- yet it is a voracious killer all the same. "The sponge is like a giant amoeba," adds Vacelet. But before you swear off scuba diving in the Mediterranean forever, be advised that he uses the word "giant" in relative terms: Asbestopluma is barely larger than your thumbnail. Scientists since Aristotle have wondered whether sponges were plants or animals. Indeed, if you don't look closely, you won't notice them doing much. "Sponges are the blobs of the animal world," says invertebrate biologist Sally Leys of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. "Every other animal has a nervous system." Not to mention muscles and a digestive tract. Even flatworms, clams and corals have these features, however rudimentary. Sponges, the oldest multi-celled animals on Earth, do not. Yet recent findings confirm not only that sponges are most assuredly animals but that they are quite accomplished ones at that. Though they occupy the bottom rung of the animal ladder, they can perform feats that would be amazing in higher animals, and scientists are now trying to understand how they do so. Like the "Blob" of the 1958 Steve McQueen movie, sponges can regenerate from small bits of tissue, even after being squeezed through a mesh. They can outcompete and outlive competitors among other inhabitants of rocky sea floors. They can brush off injury, send signals, shape-shift and produce the building blocks of possible anti-cancer drugs. Says Leys' Brisbane colleague and fellow sponge expert Mary Garson: "I think sponges deserve a lot more respect than they've gotten in the past." Close to 10,000 spe-cies of sponge populate the underwater world--in salt water and fresh water, in the tropics and off Antarctica, in the shallows of coral reefs and in trenches three miles down--though they are most plentiful and most colorful in shallows. Some are hollow globular structures big enough for a diver to hide in. Others are bouquets of hollow tubes. Some are mere incrustations on rocks, shells or blades of sea grass. A sponge's anatomy is unlike that of any other creature. Most sponges are covered by a slimy, leathery skin dotted with small pores that let in seawater--hence the phylum's scientific name, Porifera. The soft brown sponge we know from well-appointed kitchens and bathrooms is actually a chunk of collagenous skeleton, bereft of other tissue. (Don't be fooled. Cheap supermarket sponges are usually made of cellulose derived from plants.) Only certain kinds of sponge have skeletons this user-friendly. Most are embedded with spicules, which range from tiny chalky bars to glasslike needles and often give a dried skeleton the consistency of wall insulation.

Sponges Get Respect - page 2 | International Wildlife