BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY

SAAKRE MANJESH2014-11-105

Blue biotechnology

Blue (Marine) Biotechnology is the use of living marine

resources at (eco-)system, concept, organism at

molecular level to provide beneficial solutions for the

society.

Concept for an value adding use:

Cross-link to successful (regional) sectors

How does it relate to Industry and Agriculture?

• Blue Biotechnology is providing many new

solutions to Industry and Agriculture, including

environmental friendly pesticides and salt-

resistant enzymes that are helpful in many

industrial applications.

• Single cell protein, bio fertilizers etc.,

Application of biotechnology

• Fish vaccines will greatly aid the fishindustry, but very few are available.

• Fish are not easily vaccinated; it isusually done by injection or byimmersing them in water with thevaccine. Using ultrasound can facilitatevaccine entry into fish.

• The vaccine is produced by isolatingand expressing genes encoding viralproteins.

• Infectious hematopoietic necrosis (IHN)and infectious pancreatic necrosis(IPN).

1. Viral Diseases- development of vaccines

The fish were anaesthetized and injected with 20 μg of plasmid in the epaxial

muscle In fish injected with a plasmid encoding the VHSV G-gene, expression of

the G protein (red staining) by myocytes along the needle track induced a local

inflammatory reaction (many infiltrating leucocytes with blue nuclei)

Intramuscular delivery of a DNA vaccine against viralhaemorrhagic septicaemia virus (VHSV) in rainbow trout and

immuno-histochemical analysis of the injection site

2. Transgenic Fish.

• Gene transfers have been successful in several

fishes e.g common carp, rainbow trout,

Atlantic salmon, catfish.

• Salmon or rainbow trout growth hormone,

chicken δ-crystalline protein, winter flounder

antifreeze protein, E coli β-galactosidase and

E coli hygromycin gene.

• Transgenic techniques are used to introduce desirable

traits into fish, primarily to allow them to increase the

growth and weight of cultured finfish.

• Fish have large and transparent eggs, allowing it to be

easy for gene transfer.

methods• electroporation, microinjection

• Injection through the micropyle

• Most fish eggs are injected within an hour after

fertilization, because they are released from the

female and the first division of the egg occurs one

hour after fertilization.

• Salmonoid eggs are more difficult to inject because

they have a hard outer covering called the “chorion” .

• Survival rates for microinjected fish embryos are

much higher (35%–80%) than mammals, with 10%–

70% of the fish being transgenic.

Current and potential applications

of transgenic fish

• Growth enhancement

• Freeze resistance and cold tolerance

• Salinity tolerance

• Disease resistance

• Metabolic modification

• Improved product for the consumer

• Fishpharming production of

pharmacological proteins

Creating A New Variety of Fish

Transgenic Growth-Enhanced Tilapia

Transgenic Growth-Enhanced Loach

• Unnatural and undesirable

• Pleiotropic effects

• Novel proteins could be allergens

• The fish, although not interbreeding, could be viewed as

equivalent to an introduced alien species

• Transgenic + wild native fish = cause ecological harm

Objections to transgenic fish

3. Fuels From Algae.

• Renewable and no damage to the

environment.

• Biomass can be converted by bacteria

to fuels such as methane.

• Dunaliella is an alga that can produce

glycerol, which can be converted by

bacteria to chemicals such as ethanol

and butanol, which can be used as fuels.

• Algae may also be genetically modified

to make gasoline-type fuels since

brown algae and cyanobacteria already

make small amounts from fatty acids.

Alternatives to fossil fuels may be photosynthetically generated biomass

Seaweed as Fuel

• Methane via anaerobic digestion

• Fermentation

Highly enriched in sugars-fermented to

produce bioethanol or butonol

E.g Eucheuma and Kappaphycus

Red-seaweed polysaccharide consists of

carrageenan can be used for production of

bio-ethanol

Algal Products.a) Macroalgae (seaweed):

Usesi. Food

ii. Herbalism – wound dressing, dental moulds

iii. As biofertilizer

iv. Bioethanol production

• Can be cultured by producing protoplast and callus tissue from which algae can be regenerated.

• Cell and tissue culture can be used to select for new genes or traits.

• Protoplast fusion allows for traits from two organisms to be mixed.

Algal food products

Onigiri and wakame misovsoup,Japan Laver and toast

b) Microalgae (green algae and cyanobacteria):

• Mostly as food, but also used as pigment sources such as β-carotene.

• Algae such as Spirulina and Chlorella are of muchnutritional value. Spirulina is marketed today as dried flakesthat are used in fish food and Japanese food.

• Spirulina – SCP, capsules for space researchers

• Phycobiliproteins are pigments involved in algalphotosynthesis, and can be used as phycofluors, which canlabel biological molecules.

4. Anticancer Compounds.

Didemnin B cyclic depsipeptide compounds isolated from

a tunicate (sea-squirt) of the genus Trididemnum is effective

against leukemia and melanoma in mice, and is also an effective

immunosuppressive agent that could be used in organ transplants to

prevent organ rejection.

• Dolastatins are compounds from sea hare Dolabella

auricularia are effective against leukemia and melanoma

because they inhibit cell division, and may be similar to the

anticancer drug vinblastine.

Bioremediation- oil splills

• Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty, an Indian-born scientist workingat GE in the 1960’s and 1970’s, developed the multi-plasmidhydrocarbon-degrading Pseudomonas and patented it in1971.

• This was the first time anyone had patented a living organism.

• Pseudomonas putida- degrades the hydrocarbon present in oilspliis

• The possible harm to the environment by uncontrolled

growth of engineered strains is weighed against the

environment.

• Uncontrolled growth is unlikely because the bacteria need

injection of other elemental fertilizers besides the carbon in the

oil to grow, it is something that has been brought up.

• Suicide switch- once bacterial cells they’ve eaten a certain

amount of oil they kill themselves.

Research on the use of marine collagen in cartilage repairing

techniques

Research on the use of collagen from

marine invertebrates in wound healing

and product development

Integrin

5. Tourism

• fluorescent red zebra fish sold as

a novel fish, has become the first

transgenic animal sold to U.S.

• Yorktown Technologies, Austin,

Texas.

• expressing a red fluorescent

protein from a sea anemone

under the transcriptional control

of the promoter from the myosin

light peptide 2 gene of zebrafish

GloFish/Zebra fish

Important challenges does the area of Marine Biotechnology face

• Biosafety

• Access to Marine Organisms/Resources

• Intellectual Property Rights

future of Marine Biotechnology as it

relates to Agriculture and Industry

• Scientists in this field of Marine Biotechnology are

studying the various enzymes and proteins of marine

life in hopes of solving many problems that plague the

area of Agriculture and Industry today.

• These problems include trying to find anti-corrosive

coatings and "self-cleaning" surfaces for industrial use.

References

• Marine (“Blue”) Biotechnology, 2007. research on

marine substances Dr. Levent Piker, CRM – Coastal

Research & Management

• Overview of Transgenic Fish Alison Van Eenennaam,

Cooperative Extension Specialist Animal

Biotechnology and Genomics 2009

• Lorenzen, N. and LaPatra, S.E. 2005. DNA vaccines

for aquacultured fish. Rev. sci. tech. Off. int. Epiz. 24

(1), 201-213.

Could the consumption of transgenicslead to adverse health effects?