2025-05-14 カリフォルニア大学サンディエゴ校(UCSD)
Coral larvae settling on substrate coated with SNAP-X. Image from Coral Reef Ecophysiology and Engineering Lab.
<関連情報>
- https://today.ucsd.edu/story/new-gel-could-boost-coral-reef-restoration
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016777992500126X
生物模倣的な化学的マイクロハビタットがサンゴの定住を促進する Biomimetic chemical microhabitats enhance coral settlement
Samapti Kundu, Simone Potenti, Zachary A. Quinlan, Helena Willard, Justin Chen, Timothy Noritake, Natalie Levy, Zahra Karimi, Hendrikje Jorissen, Joshua R. Hancock, Crawford Drury, Linda Wegley Kelly, Luisa De Cola, Shaochen Chen, RD consortium, Daniel Wangpraseurt
Trends in Biotechnology Available online: 14 May 2025
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibtech.2025.03.019
Highlights
- Coral settlement drives reef growth and biodiversity, but remains a major bottleneck in reef restoration.
- We engineered SNAP-X, a hybrid biomaterial that releases settlement cues via a nanoparticle–biopolymer delivery system.
- SNAP-X enhances coral settlement over 20-fold, advancing reef restoration with translational potential in chemotaxis and nanomedicine research.
Technology readiness
SNAP-X, a biomimetic material designed to enhance coral settlement by replicating the chemical landscape of coralline algae on healthy reefs, has reached Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4. It has been successfully tested in both laboratory and mesocosm environments, demonstrating up to a 20-fold increase in coral settlement compared with controls, and sustained bioactive cue release for over 1 month. To progress to higher TRLs, key challenges include optimizing cost-effective large-scale production of exometabolites and demonstrating effectiveness across diverse reef environments globally. Achieving these milestones will pave the way for the integration of SNAP-X into global coral restoration and reef engineering initiatives.
Abstract
Anthropogenic stressors pose substantial threats to the existence of coral reefs. Achieving successful coral recruitment stands as a bottleneck in reef restoration and hybrid reef engineering efforts. Here, we enhance coral settlement through the development of biomimetic microhabitats that replicate the chemical landscape of healthy reefs. We engineered a soft biomaterial, SNAP-X, comprising silica nanoparticles (NPs), biopolymers, and algal exometabolites, to enrich reef microhabitats with bioactive molecules from crustose coralline algae (CCA). Coral settlement was enhanced over 20-fold using SNAP-X-coated substrates compared with uncoated controls. SNAP-X is designed to release chemical signals slowly (>1 month) under natural seawater conditions, and can be rapidly applied to natural reef substrates via photopolymerization, facilitating the light-assisted 3D printing of microengineered habitats. We anticipate that these biomimetic chemical microhabitats will be widely used to augment coral settlement on degraded reefs and to support ecosystem processes on hybrid reefs.
