Molecules as Biotic Messengers.

Chemical ecology has grown as a scientific discipline from its earliest days of tracking the exquisitely potent chemistry of insect pheromones to a deep understanding of the molecular, physiological, and behavioral interactions governed by naturally occurring small molecules. The current practice of the field relies on knowledge of genomes and gene expression patterns, protein biology, and small-molecule chemistry, providing illustrations of ecological and evolutionary patterns in natural communities.

Chemical defense of an Asian snake reflects local availability of toxic prey and hatchling diet.

Species that sequester toxins from prey for their own defense against predators may exhibit population-level variation in their chemical arsenal that reflects the availability of chemically defended prey in their habitat. is an Asian snake that possesses defensive glands in the skin of its neck ('nuchal glands'), which typically contain toxic bufadienolide steroids that the snakes sequester from consumed toads. In this study, we compared the chemistry of the nuchal gland fluid of from toad-rich and toad-free islands in Japan and determined the effect of diet on the nuchal gland constituents.

Sequestered defensive toxins in tetrapod vertebrates: principles, patterns, and prospects for future studies.

Chemical defenses are widespread among animals, and the compounds involved may be either synthesized from nontoxic precursors or sequestered from an environmental source. Defensive sequestration has been studied extensively among invertebrates, but relatively few examples have been documented among vertebrates. Nonetheless, the number of described cases of defensive sequestration in tetrapod vertebrates has increased recently and includes diverse lineages of amphibians and reptiles (including birds).

2D NMR-spectroscopic screening reveals polyketides in ladybugs.

Small molecules of biological origin continue to yield the most promising leads for drug design, but systematic approaches for exploring nature's cache of structural diversity are lacking. Here, we demonstrate the use of 2D NMR spectroscopy to screen a library of biorationally selected insect metabolite samples for partial structures indicating the presence of new chemical entities. This NMR-spectroscopic survey enabled detection of novel compounds in complex metabolite mixtures without prior fractionation or isolation.