{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,10]],"date-time":"2025-12-10T16:22:15Z","timestamp":1765383735524,"version":"3.46.0"},"reference-count":57,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"12","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,10]],"date-time":"2025-12-10T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1765324800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"CONVOCATORIA DEL PROGRAMA PROPIO DEL CENTRO DE GASTRONOM\u00cdA DEL MEDITERR\u00c1NEO","award":["Gasterra 2023\u201324"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["Gasterra 2023\u201324"]}]},{"name":"UA_DENIA PARA EL FOMENTO DE LA I+D+i EN EL \u00c1MBITO DE LA GASTRONOM\u00cdA","award":["GASTERRA 2024"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["GASTERRA 2024"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Metabolites"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Background an Objectives: The Mediterranean sea urchins Paracentrotus lividus and Arbacia lixula co-occur on shallow rocky reefs but display contrasting ecological and physiological traits. We compared their gonadal metabolomes to identify species-specific metabolic strategies. Methods: High-resolution magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance (HR-MAS NMR) spectroscopy to intact gonadal tissues, combining multivariate chemometric modelling with targeted integration, boxplot-based univariate analysis and pathway analysis. Results:A. lixula showed an osmolyte- and redox-oriented phenotype with elevated betaine, taurine, sarcosine, trimethylamine (TMA), trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), carnitine, creatine, malonate, methylmalonate, uridine and xanthine. In contrast, P. lividus exhibited an amino-acid-enriched anabolic profile dominated by lysine, glycine and glutamine, together with higher levels of formaldehyde, methanol and 3-carboxypropyl-trimethylammonium. Pathway analysis indicated that A. lixula metabolites mapped onto glycine\/serine\u2013threonine metabolism and the folate-linked one-carbon pool, whereas P. lividus metabolites were enriched in glyoxylate\/dicarboxylate, nitrogen and amino-acid pathways. These contrasting osmolyte\u2013C1 versus nitrogen\u2013amino-acid strategies are compatible with species-specific host\u2013microbiota metabolic interactions inferred from published microbiome data. Conclusions: Overall, our results support a framework in which A. lixula adopts a resilience-oriented osmolyte strategy and P. lividus an efficiency-oriented anabolic strategy, highlighting HR-MAS NMR metabolomics as a powerful approach to investigate adaptive biochemical diversity in marine invertebrates.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/metabo15120787","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,10]],"date-time":"2025-12-10T16:11:18Z","timestamp":1765383078000},"page":"787","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Osmolytes vs. Anabolic Reserves: Contrasting Gonadal Metabolomes in Two Sympatric Mediterranean Sea Urchins"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"15","author":[{"given":"Estela","family":"Carbonell-Garz\u00f3n","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Marine Sciences and Applied Biology, University of Alicante, 03690 Alicante, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Ricardo","family":"Ibanco-Ca\u00f1ete","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Marine Sciences and Applied Biology, University of Alicante, 03690 Alicante, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Pablo","family":"Sanchez-Jerez","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Marine Sciences and Applied Biology, University of Alicante, 03690 Alicante, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0402-9770","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Frutos C. Marhuenda","family":"Egea","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Agricultural Chemistry and Edafology, University of Alicante, 03690 Alicante, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,10]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2505","DOI":"10.1007\/s00227-011-1751-2","article-title":"Leading role of the sea urchin Arbacia lixula in maintaining the barren state in southwestern mediterranean","volume":"158","author":"Bonaviri","year":"2011","journal-title":"Mar. Biol."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"117","DOI":"10.3354\/meps09359","article-title":"A wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing: Carnivory in dominant sea urchins in the mediterranean","volume":"441","author":"Wangensteen","year":"2011","journal-title":"Mar. Ecol. Prog. 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