Over the past decade, development along the northern coast of Jamaica has accelerated, resulting in elevated levels of sedimentation on adjacent reefs. To understand the effects of this development on sponge community dynamics, we conducted surveys at three locations with varying degrees of adjacent coastal development to quantify species richness, abundance and diversity at two depths (8-10 m ...

Genomic mining revealed one major nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) phylogenetic cluster in 12 marine sponge species, one ascidian, an actinobacterial isolate and seawater. Phylogenetic analysis predicts its taxonomic affiliation to the actinomycetes and hydroxy-phenyl-glycine as a likely substrate. Additionally, a phylogenetically distinct NRPS gene cluster was discovered in the microbial...

Sponge iron (DRI) due to the high surface area, often shows a high tendency to re-oxidation and at some cases spontaneous combustion (autoignition). In this work, re-oxidation behavior and autoignition of sponge iron, produced from different types of iron ore has been investigated. Isothermal and non-isothermal re-oxidation experiments were carried out on each type of DRI and their autoignition...

In this study, we fabricated a superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic protonated melamine sponge for effective separation of water-rich immiscible oil/water mixtures with extremely high separation efficiency. This protonated melamine sponge exhibited excellent antifouling properties and could be used to separate oil/water mixtures continuously for up to 12 h without any increase in the...

Sponge metagenomes are a useful platform to mine cryptic biosynthetic gene clusters responsible for production of natural products involved in the sponge-microbe association. Since numerous sponge-derived bioactive metabolites are biosynthesized by the symbiotic bacteria, this strategy may concurrently reveal sponge-symbiont produced compounds. Accordingly, a metagenomic analysis of the Japanes...

Membrane fouling has been regarded as one of the biggest challenges to widespread application of membrane bioreactor (MBR). This study focuses on minimizing the membrane fouling and improving the performance of submerged membrane bioreactor (SMBR) by porous sponge addition. The effects of sponge addition on sustainable flux and membrane fouling were investigated. Acclimatized sponge could signi...

Marine sponges are potential sources of many unique metabolites, including cytotoxic and anticancer compounds. Natural sponge populations are insufficient or inaccessible for producing commercial quantities of metabolites of interest. This review focuses on methods of producing sponge biomass to overcome supply limitations. Production techniques discussed include aquaculture in the sea, the con...

Oral administration of a probiotic mixture (PM; Respecta®) consisting of Lactobacillus rhamnosus HN001 (L1), Lactobacillus acidophilus La-14 (L2), and lactoferrin RCXTM results in colonization of these probiotics in the vagina of healthy women. Therefore, we examined whether vaginal colonization of the PM ingredients L1 and L2 could attenuate bacterial vaginosis (BV). BV was induced in mice via...

We study subgroups of Z which possess group theoretic properties analogous to properties introduced by Menger (1924), Hurewicz (1925), Rothberger (1938), and Scheepers (1996). We obtain purely combinatorial characterizations of these properties, and combine them with other techniques to solve several questions of Babinkostova, Kočinac, and Scheepers. We also show that, while the Menger Conjectu...