No 3 (2024)

This year the G.B. Elyakov Pacific Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry (PIBOC) celebrates its 60th anniversary and the 95th anniversary of its founder – an outstanding scientist and organizer of science, Academician G.B. Elyakov. Brief information about its history and remarkable scientists, about some significant scientific results and the role of the Institute in the world research of natural biologically active compounds is given in the proposed report.

The collaboration between various research institutions in South Korea and G.B. Elyakov Pacific Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry (PIBOC) in Russia started 30 years ago in 1993. Since then, we have been actively conducting marine biotechnology and pharmaceutical research. For nearly 20 years, this successful partnership has been led by the exceptional “conductor” Valentin Stonik, who has formed an exquisite harmony “orchestra” that we have named KORUS MUSIC (Korea-Russia collaboration for Marine Unlimitedre Sources for Innovation and Creation). The purpose of this review paper is to present the history of KORUS MUSIC and highlight the significant advances achieved through our joint research, and to outline plans for our future collaboration and joint efforts for the next 20 years. This article is a synthesis of science and poetry, of the history of friendly relations and dreams of a common future. It is dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Prof. Stonik, to the 60th anniversary of PIBOC and to the 30th anniversary of collaboration between the Korean and Russian scientists.

This work is devoted to a generalization and comparison of the structural organization, physicochemical properties and substrate specificity of four fucanases of glycoside hydrolase family 107 that are part of the fucoidanutilizing cluster of the marine bacterium Wenyingzhuangia fucanilytica CZ1127^T. The established differences in the significant characteristics of these enzymes provide new knowledge about the characteristics of fucanases belonging to the GH107 family.

The article briefly discusses main achievements in the investigation of structures of sea cucumber triterpene glycosides and sterols in G.B. Elyakov Pacific Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of FEB RAS in the period from 2019 by now, including isolation and structural elucidation of more than 80 new triterpene glycosides from Pacific Ocean sea cucumbers while several of them possess unique structural features.

The review briefly describes a research carried out over the past 40 years at the Laboratory of Peptide Chemistry of G.B. Elyakov Pacific Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, FEB RAS (LPCh of PIBOC FEB RAS), in collaboration with Russian and foreign colleagues. The results of search, identification, and study of the structure, the biological activity, and the mechanisms of an interaction with the biological targets of peptides and polypeptides produced by the tropical sea anemone Heteractis crispa (=Heteractis magnifica, formerly Radianthus macrodactylus) are discussed. One of the main achievements of LPCh over the past years is the discovery of new structural type 2 neurotoxins, namely, six toxins that were not identified among the representatives of so-called long anemonotoxins in the first decade of foreign research (70–80s of the last century), and among them the first, previously unknown, double-chain neurotoxin. In addition, the presence of several multigene families expressing α-pore-forming toxins (actinoporins), serine protease inhibitors (Kunitz-type peptides), and APETx-like peptides forming the combinatorial libraries of the several dozen of highly homologous family members has been established. Using in silico methods (homologous modeling, alanine mutagenesis, full-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulation), the spatial structures of the studied peptides and complexes with biological targets were predicted for the first time, and their structure-functional relationships were analyzed. This was the foundation for the further production of recombinant and mutant analogues on the basis of the combinatorial libraries for the purpose of conducting the electrophysiological studies of the mechanisms of their molecular interaction with targets as well as determining the pharmacological potential. In the review the most important results of recent years are presented. They are related to the discovery of analgesic, anti-inflammatory, and antitumor activity in a number of the studied peptides.

The main scientific direction of the laboratory of bioassays and mechanism of action of biologically active compounds of the G.B. Elyakov Pacific Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, FEB RAS is the study on the biological activity of natural and synthetic compounds. The review briefly examines the laboratory’s main achievements over the past five years.

Results of the studies of the capsular polysaccharides and lipopolysaccharides from the marine Gram-negative bacteria belonging to the genera Pseudoalteromonas, Idiomarina, Marinicella, Halomonas, Cobetia, Poseidonocella, Psychrobacter, Devosia, Echinicola and Cellulophaga are presented.

The article describes a new generalized approach to performing underwater contact (technological) operations in fully automatic mode using autonomous underwater vehicles equipped with multi-link manipulators. This approach involves the use of a special hull of the underwater vehicle, ensuring its high mobility and convenient control over all six degrees of freedom, as well as passive vertical stabilization when performing contact operations using a six-degree manipulator. The proposed new method for identifying the added masses and moments of inertia of the liquid attached to the moving links of the manipulator, as well as the coefficients of Coloumb friction, allows us to determine the external moments in the joints of the manipulator, providing an accurate force effect of its working tool on the objects of work. The maintenance of this predetermined effect is provided by a special system for stabilizing the position and orientation of the device at a given point in space, as well as the current thrust of its thrusters, taking into account the current configuration of the manipulator. The proposed methods, as well as devices and systems synthesized on their basis with elements of artificial intelligence, have already been partially tested on land and underwater robotic complexes, which guarantees their successful use in the creation of manipulative autonomous underwater vehicles of a new generation.