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 fish industry, but very few are available.

• Fish are not easily vaccinated; it is usually done by injection or by immersing them in water with the vaccine. Using ultrasound can facilitate vaccine entry into fish.

• The vaccine is produced by isolating and expressing genes encoding viral proteins.

• 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. Fu e ls F r om A lg ae .

• 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• FermentationHighly 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. Foodii. Herbalism – wound dressing, dental mouldsiii. As biofertilizeriv. 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 much nutritional value. Spirulina is marketed today as dried flakes that are used in fish food and Japanese food.

• Spirulina – SCP, capsules for space researchers

• Phycobiliproteins are pigments involved in algal photosynthesis, and can be used as phycofluors, which can label 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 working at GE in the 1960’s and 1970’s, developed the multi-plasmid hydrocarbon-degrading Pseudomonas and patented it in 1971.

• This was the first time anyone had patented a living organism.• Pseudomonas putida- degrades the hydrocarbon present in oil

spliis

• 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 repairingtechniques

Research on the use of collagen frommarine 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 transgenics lead to adverse health effects?