First insights into health issues related to blooms of the cyanobacterium Lyngbya cf. majuscula in New Caledonia
Résumé
Cyanobacterial blooms are becoming more recurrent in the Pacific Ocean leading to health but
also economic concerns among the local communities. Recently, closures of beaches have resulted
from the yearly occurrence of blooms of a cyanobacterium related to Lyngbya majuscula. The project
CYCLADES was recently supported by the Pacific Fund to give some insights into recent events of
dermatitis associated with these blooms in the Drehu island of New Caledonia.
We report the first results on the chemical diversity identified in specimens overgrowing corals
in the affected beach. New linear and cyclic modified peptides were isolated as major metabolites
together with the known dolastatin 3. Additionally, some modified fatty acids are reported for the first
time and all metabolites were biologically tested.