The Potential of Indonesian Heterobranchs Found around Bunaken Island for the Production of Bioactive Compounds

Abstract

The species diversity of marine heterobranch sea slugs found on field trips around Bunaken Island (North Sulawesi, Indonesia) and adjacent islands of the Bunaken National Marine Park forms the basis of this review. In a survey performed in 2015, 80 species from 23 families were collected, including 17 new species. Only three of these have been investigated previously in studies from Indonesia. Combining species diversity with a former study from 2003 reveals in total 140 species from this locality. The diversity of bioactive compounds known and yet to be discovered from these organisms is summarized and related to the producer if known or suspected (might it be down the food chain, de novo synthesised from the slug or an associated bacterium). Additionally, the collection of microorganisms for the discovery of natural products of pharmacological interest from this hotspot of biodiversity that is presented here contains more than 50 species that have never been investigated before in regard to bioactive secondary metabolites. This highlights the great potential of the sea slugs and the associated microorganisms for the discovery of natural products of pharmacological interest from this hotspot of biodiversity.