A non-stick slime made by starfish may lead to new treatments for asthma, arthritis, hay fever and other inflammatory conditions, say marine biologists in Scotland.

The scientists, from the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) in Oban, Argyll, have been studying the slime produced by the spiny starfish, Marthasterias glacialis, commonly found in the waters around Scotland and other parts of the British Isles, and say it could be vital for treating human infections.

Lead researcher Dr Charlie Bavington, founder and managing director of Glycomar, a marine biotechnology company based at SAMS, has been talking to the media about their work.

In an interview with the BBC aired on Thursday 9 December, he demonstrated how the starfish produced the slime: he took a starfish with a span of about 30 cm or 12 in out of a tank, held it, after a few seconds the slime began visibly to ooze from the creature’s spiny body.

The slime is a defence mechanism and also prevents debris from sticking to the starfish.

Bavington said the compound they were interested in was only part of the starfish’s “goo”; he showed BBC reporter Rebecca Morelle the purified compound, which looks like a white powder, and explained that they are planning to work with chemists to produce a man-made version.

They are hoping that the compound can do for blood vessels what it does for the starfish: stop things sticking to them.

Inflammatory conditions like asthma and arthritis are what happens when the body’s natural immune response to infection overreacts and white blood cells stick to and build up on the inside walls of blood vessels, damaging tissue.

Starfish are continually bathed in micro-organisms, bacteria, larvae, and viruses looking to set up camp on their spiny skin. But the slime that they secrete protects them from this continual onslaught by making their skin too slippery:

“… starfish are better than Teflon: they have a very efficient anti-fouling surface that prevents things from sticking,” said Bavington, according to a report in The Scotsman.

He said they want to see if the compounds they have isolated from the starfish slime could be developed into a drug that coats blood vessels to create the same effect and allow white blood cells to flow through without sticking to the sides.

“In humans cells stick from a flowing medium to a blood vessel wall, so we thought we could learn something from how starfish prevent this so we could find a way to prevent it in humans,” explained Bavington.

Clive Page, professor of pharmacology at King’s College London, is working with Bavington on this. He said discovering this substance in the starfish slime has dramatically shortened the usual timescale for developing a new treatment:

“The starfish have effectively done a lot of the hard work for us,” said Page, explaining that normally scientists have to screen hundreds of compounds before they find such a lead.

The starfish has had “billions of years in evolution to come up with molecules that do specific things,” he added.

The field of research that this kind of discovery belongs to is called glycobiology, a branch of biology that studies the structure, biosynthesis and function of sugar chains or saccharides, for which there is increasing interest because of the important role they play in cells.

Saccharides exist on cell surfaces, they mediate interaction between cells, and also between cells and the extracellular matrix and effector molecules.

Studies in this field are opening up possibilities for the discovery of new drugs made from saccharides or other molecules that target the biosynthesis and function of saccharides.

Biotech companies like GlycoMar specialize in the glycobiology of sea creatures as opposed to land animals to find compounds for new drugs.

Sources: BBC News, The Scotsman, GlycoMar.

Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD