Effects of eliminating interactions in multi-layer culture on survival, food utilization and growth of small sea urchins Strongylocentrotus intermedius at high temperatures

Antiviral activity of sulphated specialized metabolites from sea urchin Clypeaster humilis: in vitro and in silico studies

Chemical investigations of the sea urchin Clypeaster humilis has led to separation of twelve compounds including one new sulfonic acid derivative (7R) tridec-1-en-7-yl hydrogen sulphate (1), first isolated from natural source, pyridine-3-yl methane sulfonate (2), and first isolated from marine organisms, boldine (12), in addition to nine known compounds (3-11), which were isolated for the first time from the genus Clypeaster. Their structures were elucidated based on spectroscopic analyses (1D and 2D NMR), HR-ESI-MS as well as comparison with the previously reported data. The antiviral activity of the crude extract and sulphated compounds were evaluated using MTT colorimetric assay against Coxsackie B4 virus. The crude extract and compound 1 showed very potent antiviral activity with a percentage of inhibition equal to 89.7 ± 0.53% and 86.1 ± 0.92%, respectively. Results of the molecular docking analysis of the isolated compounds within Coxsackie Virus B4 (COX-B4) X-ray crystal structure and quantum chemical calculation for three sulphated compounds are in a consistent adaptation with the in vitro antiviral results. The pharmacokinetic properties (ADME) of isolated compounds were determined.

A broad-taxa approach as an important concept in ecotoxicological studies and pollution monitoring

Aquatic invertebrates play a pivotal role in (eco)toxicological assessments because they offer ethical, cost-effective and repeatable testing options. Additionally, their significance in the food chain and their ability to represent diverse aquatic ecosystems make them valuable subjects for (eco)toxicological studies. To ensure consistency and comparability across studies, international (eco)toxicology guidelines have been used to establish standardised methods and protocols for data collection, analysis and interpretation. However, the current standardised protocols primarily focus on a limited number of aquatic invertebrate species, mainly from Arthropoda, Mollusca and Annelida. These protocols are suitable for basic toxicity screening, effectively assessing the immediate and severe effects of toxic substances on organisms. For more comprehensive and ecologically relevant assessments, particularly those addressing long-term effects and ecosystem-wide impacts, we recommended the use of a broader diversity of species, since the present choice of taxa exacerbates the limited scope of basic ecotoxicological studies. This review provides a comprehensive overview of (eco)toxicological studies, focusing on major aquatic invertebrate taxa and how they are used to assess the impact of chemicals in diverse aquatic environments. The present work supports the use of a broad-taxa approach in basic environmental assessments, as it better represents the natural populations inhabiting various ecosystems. Advances in omics and other biochemical and computational techniques make the broad-taxa approach more feasible, enabling mechanistic studies on non-model organisms. By combining these approaches with in vitro techniques together with the broad-taxa approach, researchers can gain insights into less-explored impacts of pollution, such as changes in population diversity, the development of tolerance and transgenerational inheritance of pollution responses, the impact on organism phenotypic plasticity, biological invasion outcomes, social behaviour changes, metabolome changes, regeneration phenomena, disease susceptibility and tissue pathologies. This review also emphasises the need for harmonised data-reporting standards and minimum annotation checklists to ensure that research results are findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR), maximising the use and reusability of data. The ultimate goal is to encourage integrated and holistic problem-focused collaboration between diverse scientific disciplines, international standardisation organisations and decision-making bodies, with a focus on transdisciplinary knowledge co-production for the One-Health approach.

Gene expression patterns of sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus intermedius) exposed to different combinations of temperature and hypoxia

Strongylocentrotus intermedius is one of the most economically valuable sea urchin species in China, and its growth and survival are severely constrained by ocean warming and the hypoxia that often accompanies high water temperatures. To elucidate the molecular mechanisms of S. intermedius that regulate gene expression in response to multi-causal environmental stresses. We performed a de novo transcriptome analysis of coelomocyte from S. intermedius to heat (25 °C), hypoxia (2 mg/L), and the combined stress. We identified 35,635, 29,107, and 29,440 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in S. intermedius cultured under high temperature, low oxygen, and combined stress, respectively. Further Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways analyses revealed that these DEGs mainly enriched the functional categories of "Protein processing in endoplasmic reticulum," and "Glutathione metabolism" by heat stress, such as HSP70, GSTO1, PDIA4. After hypoxic stress, "Notch signaling pathway" and metabolism-related pathways such as "Glycerolipid metabolism", "Pyruvate metabolism" were significantly enriched. Exposure to combined stress resulted in a two-factor additive effect at the transcriptome level and have a more extensive impact on the immune correlated pathways in S. intermedius than single stress, the expression of related immune genes (C3, C5, and AIFM2) were up-regulated. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis of the expression of 18 DEGs confirmed the RNA-Seq results. Observations in the present study will improve the understanding of the molecular mechanism of S. intermedius in response to multi-causal environmental stress.