Holothuria leucospilota and Stichopus chloronotus are among the most widespread tropical sea cucumber species usually harvested for food medicine in Asian countries, which natural stocks have collapsed worldwide. Both can reproduce sexually asexually, a better understanding of their reproductive strategy provide useful information conservation purposes. To describe genetic structure diversity s...

To avoid predation, holothuroids produce feeding-deterrent molecules in their body wall and viscera, the so-called saponins. Five tropical sea cucumber species of the family Holothuriidae were investigated in order to study their saponin content in two different organs, the body wall and the Cuvierian tubules. Mass spectrometry techniques (MALDI- and ESI-MS) were used to detect and analyze sapo...

Three ganglioside molecular species, HLG-1 (1), HLG-2 (2), and HLG-3 (3) have been obtained from the lipid fraction of the chloroform/methanol extract of the sea cucumber Holothuria leucospilota. The structures of these gangliosides have been determined, on the basis of chemical and spectroscopic evidence, as 1-O-[(N-glycolyl-alpha-D-neuraminosyl)-(2-->6)-beta-D-glucopyranosyl]-ceramide (1), 1-...