Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vent Organisms as Sources of Natural Products

This chapter reviews the handful of deep-sea vent-derived natural products reported to date and discusses the ongoing research to link phylogenetic diversity of organisms to the observed physiological and metabolic diversity in deep-sea hydrothermal vents, and relevance to many biological contexts. While new actinomycete bacteria are reported to be isolated and cultured from hydrothermal vent fluids, as reviewed in the subsequent discussion on laboratory cultivation of deep-sea vent-derived organisms, new biologically active natural products from these more recent collections have yet to appear in the literature. While microbes from extreme environments have been cultured from deep-sea hydrothermal vent environments under standard conditions, many of these organisms likely fall into the extreme-tolerant category, and the natural products reported from these sources may not necessarily be new or novel. With regard to deep-sea environments, biotechnological interests have focused mainly on the development of new enzymes and exopolysaccharides (EPS) to improve agriculture, biotechnology, cosmetics, pharmaceutical, and waste management processes.