In vitro culture of the ascidian Ecteinascidia turbinata to supply the antitumor compounds ecteinascidins

Ecteinascidin production for ascidians fed at the two highest cell concentrations showed a tenfold increase over 31 days, thus indicating that in vitro culture is one possible method of supplying the antitumor compound. Overall, this study suggests that a mixed diet of C. gracilis and I. galbana at a concentration of 160,000 cells ml-1 is a good feeding regime for the in vitro culture of E. turbinata to supply ecteinascidins.

This is the author’s version of a work accepted for publication by Elsevier. Changes resulting from the publishing process, including peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting and other quality control mechanisms, may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. The definitive version has been published at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/aqua-online and may be cited as Duckworth, Alan R., Gail A. Samples, Amy E. Wright, Shirley A. Pomponi (2004) In vitro culture of the ascidian Ecteinascidia turbinata to supply the antitumor compounds ecteinascidins, Aquaculture 241:427–439 doi:10.1016/j.aquaculture.2004.08.024

Florida Atlantic University. Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute contribution #1563.