Marine Biotechnology Research Articles

Patenting Trends in Marine Biodiversity: Issues and Challenges

Marine and terrestrial ecosystems are so fundamentally different in some aspects that many of the issues concerning biodiversity cannot be interpreted using a single theory of common application to all ecosystems. This article firstly gives the current statistics of Marine Biodiversity worldwide with India’s contribution.Marine organisms comprise approximately a half of the total biodiversity, thus offering a vast source to discover useful therapeutics. In recent years, a significant number of novel metabolites with potent pharmacological properties have been discovered from the marine organisms. The ‘marine world’ boasts of innumerable life forms, each with a unique characteristic, making its genetic make-up the most sought after field for marine researchers. Coral reefs are known as the “rainforests of the sea,” it is exploited for cosmetics to pharmaceuticals patents. This research paper discusses the entire issues of exploiting marine biodiversity for Pharmaceutical Patents.Marine biodiversity contains most Phylogenetic and genomic diversity on Earth. Progress in marine and molecular technologies has facilitated “Bio prospecting,” with the number of patent claims associated with genes of marine organisms growing at 12% per year. The global market for marine biotechnology was estimated at U.S. $2.4 billion in 2004, with estimated average growth of 5.9% per year from 1999 to 2007. With this prospective this article concludes with the issues and challenges of Marine Biodiversity and Gene Patents with some suggestions.

Increasing knowledge: the grand challenge in marine biotechnology

While contemplating the main challenges in the field of marine biotechnology, I found myself transported back to when I was a six years old boy, strolling along the beach with my grandfather and marveling at the diverse world of marine creatures which were washed up by the tide. My grandfather would point out their various shapes, how to best pick them up, their potential usefulness to us and whether or not they were edible. This took place in the mid 1960’s, not too long after marine biologist Dominick Mendola’s own description of how he discovered the ocean through his own grandfather, who was a fisherman and first introduced him to the bounty of marine organisms. Mendola later worked in the field of marine biotechnology at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California, studying and growing marine organisms in order to harvest natural marine compounds and materials of interest for pharmaceutical, medical and industrial applications. His life was studied and reported by anthropologist Helmreich, whose simple definition of marine biotechnology as “a natural extension of cultural practices of garnering food from the ocean,” beautifully summarizes the origins of this field and its deep significance to human society (Helmreich, 2003). The grand challenge of the coming era is to continue to build our basic knowledge of marine environment—only through this understanding we can fully understand and make use of what marine organisms have to offer society in terms of new technology and applications. Indeed, we owe much of the commercial success of biotechnological developments and applications over the course of the second half of the Twentieth century to the basic knowledge and academic research findings garnered across a spectrum of scientific disciplines. Casting a look to the future, it becomes apparent that the current overexploitation and anthropogenic impacts to the oceans represents a serious threat to further biotechnological advancements. Not only are the oceans the world’s largest ecosystem, covering more than 70% of the earth’s surface, but they also host the greatest diversity of life and contain a wealth of unexplored habitats and organisms meaning that they harbor a significant potential for biotechnological applications. Through a deep understanding of the complexity of the marine ecosystem we will be able to protect the ocean and the organisms that inhabit it. Marine biotechnological advancements have already resulted in successes in the field of human health (i.e., marine drugs), fisheries (the development of molecular markers that help to avoid overfishing, etc.), and environmental recovery or restoration (i.e., marine organism based bioremediation). In a study, Leary et al. (2009) analyzed the number of patents on marine resources published between 1973 and 2007 and classified them in five application domains, including the food and cosmetics industries, agriculture, chemistry, and pharmacology. The number of patents in each of these fields increased over the studied time period with the latter two growing by 53.5 and 32.2%, respectively (Trincone, 2012, 2013a). Many of advancements stemmed from basic research on ecological issues related to the chemical defense of prey, or on the growth-based selection of microbial communities in contaminated areas after petroleum pollution, etc. (e.g., Cafaro et al., 2013; Trincone, 2013b). Examples of applications resulting from biotechnological developments include the use of microand macroalgae for the production of biofuel and the development of small bioactive molecules to increase the sustainability of marine renewable energy resources. Marine polysaccharides are one of the most abundant renewable biomaterials found on land and in the oceans. In spite of this abundance the structure and functionality of rarer polysaccharides remain unknown and mostly unexplored. Brown seaweeds, for example, synthesize unique bioactive polysaccharides: laminarans, alginic acids, and fucoidans. A wide range of biological activities (anticoagulant, antitumor, antiviral, anti-inflammation, etc.) have been attributed to fucoidans (Silchenko et al., 2013) and their role with respect to structure-activity relationships is still under debate. A few available studies look at algal polysaccharide degradation in the context of biomass resource degradation/recycling, while in many Asian countries, where seaweed has a long usage history, direct macroalgae cultivation in the sea is actively being considered for the production of bioethanol (Gurvan and Czjzek, 2013). Regarding carbohydrate active enzymes, it must be said that these biocatalysts are described in different species from the marine environment. A recent renewed interest for the synthesis of small (poly)-glucosylated

Isolation of marine microorganisms from the Peniche coast with high biotechnological potential

Event Abstract Back to Event Isolation of marine microorganisms from the Peniche coast with high biotechnological potential Carina Coelho1, Joana A. Fernandes1, Patrícia Silva1, Clélia N. Afonso1 and Maria M. Sampaio1* 1 School of Tourism and Maritime Technology, GIRM - Marine Resources Research Group, Polytechnic Institute of Leiria , Portugal The marine environment represents more than two thirds of our planet and although it is a possible source of natural products with bioactivity, is still largely unexplored, which represents a huge window of opportunity. During the last decades Marine Biotechnology has focused some of their efforts in the search and study of marine bacteria and fungi. These microorganisms have been a valuable tool in several scientific studies, basically because they grow with relative ease, achieving considerable densities of cell mass. This is an important feature because these organisms also produce bioactive compounds, with applications in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and food area, among others. Such compounds frequently arise from defense mechanisms or as response to stress. Annually, a growing number of new compounds from marine organisms are discovered, characterized and identified, and from these most are originated from bacteria and fungi. In the search process for natural products with proven activity, it is generally accepted that one should have a diverse and largely unexplored repertoire of microorganisms, as it enlarges the possibility of obtaining new and diverse metabolites. In the present work, results concerning the isolation of microorganisms of marine origin, obtained from the water and sediments of the Peniche coast, are shown. The main objective is to create a database of isolated microorganisms, and at the same time obtaining a basic characterization, with some interesting features from the biotechnology point of view, on viability of long-term of their cultures, as well as prepare raw extracts for bioactivity screening. Also basic microbiology characteristics will be register: gram stain, catalase, oxidase, use of different sugars and amino acids as a carbon source and on different concentrations growths of salinity, relatively to 20 strains already isolated. Acknowledgements *the first three authors contributed equally to this work and are ex-aequo first authors. Keywords: Antimicrobial activity, Biotechnology, marine bacteria, sediments., marine microbiology Conference: IMMR | International Meeting on Marine Research 2014, Peniche, Portugal, 10 Jul - 11 Jul, 2014. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: BLUE BIOTECH Citation: Coelho C, Fernandes JA, Silva P, Afonso CN and Sampaio MM (2014). Isolation of marine microorganisms from the Peniche coast with high biotechnological potential. Front. Mar. Sci. Conference Abstract: IMMR | International Meeting on Marine Research 2014. doi: 10.3389/conf.fmars.2014.02.00004 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 10 May 2014; Published Online: 18 Jul 2014. * Correspondence: Prof. Maria M Sampaio, School of Tourism and Maritime Technology, GIRM - Marine Resources Research Group, Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, Peniche, 2520-641, Portugal, msampaio@ipleiria.pt Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Carina Coelho Joana A Fernandes Patrícia Silva Clélia N Afonso Maria M Sampaio Google Carina Coelho Joana A Fernandes Patrícia Silva Clélia N Afonso Maria M Sampaio Google Scholar Carina Coelho Joana A Fernandes Patrícia Silva Clélia N Afonso Maria M Sampaio PubMed Carina Coelho Joana A Fernandes Patrícia Silva Clélia N Afonso Maria M Sampaio Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

The best recovery of Nannochloropsis oculata from the culture broth and effect on content of lipids

Nannochloropsis oculata is an interesting microorganism in the field of marine biotechnology because of its high lipid content. Biodiesel from this microorganism has been demonstrated to be a feasible replacement of petroleum-derived fuels. The effect of pH, flocculant dosage (FeCl3), and cell density has been studied in order to maximize biomass recovery and lipids. A partial factorial design was used to screen the main factors involved in the maximal biomass recovery from the culture broth, indicating that the best harvesting efficiency of 94.2% was obtained at pH 7, 47.6 × 106 of cell density and flocculant dosage of 13 mg FeCl3/l. Oleic acid, palmitic acid, and palmitoleic acid (omega-7) were identified inside the microalgae harvested. Omega-7 fatty acid is five times more potent than omega-3 at lowering triglycerides. The lipids identified had lower degree of unsaturation; this makes microalgal lipids a potential replacement for fossil fuel. 0.76% of reduction in eicosapentaenoic unsaturated fatty acid (EPA) was observed probably due to flocculant addition and that is beneficial for providing an increased lipid stability. In summary, this work is devoted to demonstrate that the optimization of the separation of microalgae from culture broth is mostly dependent on the pH, cell density, and flocculants dosage.

LEDs light spectrum effect on the success of fragmentation and growth of the leather coral Sarcophyton spp.

LEDs light spectrum effect on the success of fragmentation and growth of the leather coral Sarcophyton spp.

Study of Macro Algae for Marine Biotechnology Material from Large Scale Offshore Cultivation from Multiple Mooring System of Large Aquaculture Ocean Floating Structure

Study of Macro Algae for Marine Biotechnology Material from Large Scale Offshore Cultivation from Multiple Mooring System of Large Aquaculture Ocean Floating Structure

090 The influence of cryopreservation on marine microalgal cells

The development of cryopreservation methods for microalgae opens great prospects for marine biotechnology and aims to establish a bank of cryopreserved cultures. Nine of eleven marine microalgal species used in this study (the diatoms, green, red, and golden algae), including five previously untested species, were successfully recovered after freezing to ultra-low temperatures (−196 °C) using penetrating (Me 2 SO, glycerol, and ethylene glycol) and non-penetrating (trehalose and polyvinylpyrrolidone) cryoprotectants. The chief factor for the successful preservation of microalgal cells during freeze-thawing was shown to be the cooling rate. The survival rate for many algal species did not exceed 15%, but recovery of the initial cell concentration usually took 6–12 days after thawing. The pigment composition and content were evaluated as additional indicators of the algal functional activity. The pigment content tended to decrease after thawing as compared with unfrozen cells and increase during cell recovery. Three diatom species ( Attheya arenicola , A. longicornis , and A. ussurensis ) were successfully cryopreserved for the first time. For these weakly silicified marine diatoms, step freezing created the possibility of gradual cryoprotectant penetration inside the cells and a stepwise release of water out of the cells. None of the tested protocols gave a positive result for the diatoms of the Pseudo-nitzschia genus. The failure in cryopreservation of the Pseudo-nitzschia species may be explained by peculiarities in the cell wall composition: the Pseudo-nitzschia cell wall is composed of more silica and fewer organic components than those of the other tested diatoms, which makes the wall much more rigid and, probably, not permeable enough for penetrating protectants, even if the step freezing method is used. In our experiments with the Pseudo-nitzschia species, we observed that most of the thawed cells were dead but had almost undamaged cell walls. In contrast, the high tolerance to a wide range of cryopreservation conditions of the tiny green algae may be explained by its low water content, small cell size and thin cell wall. Cryosensitivity of marine algal cells was shown to depend on the differences in natural intrinsic characteristics rather than their taxonomic position. The mechanisms by which some algae withstand freezing better than others are not yet clear, but we suggest that the biochemical and physical properties of algal cell walls determine the water flow inside and outside the cell and enable the high flexibility needed for adaptation to different environments. Our results are a step in the development of a cryopreservation technology for some marine microalgae and the search for the nature of their cryoresistance. Source of funding: Grant 1 12-I-P6-07 of the Far Eastern Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, grant 1 12-04-31974 of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, grant 1 12-04-13006-12 of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research-Far Eastern Federal University, and grant 1 11 G34.31.0010 of Program at the Far Eastern Federal University. Conflict of interest: None declared. borodandy@gmail.com

Innovative processes and products involving marine organisms in South Africa

The SEAChange programme, instituted in 2007 under the auspices of the South African Network for Coastal and Oceanic Research (SANCOR), included four interdependent research themes, one of which was Marine Biotechnology. Marine biotechnology is a discipline that involves both basic and applied research, and is aimed at the commercial exploitation of marine organisms. This paper reviews the progress made in three key areas of the SEAChange programme over the first five years, namely marine aquaculture, omics of marine organisms and marine bioprospecting, and discusses these accomplishments in context to marine biotechnology internationally.

The influence of ultra-low temperatures on marine microalgal cells

The development of cryopreservation methods for microalgae opens great prospects for marine biotechnology and aims to establish a bank of cryopreserved cultures. Eight of ten marine microalgae species used in this study (the diatoms, green, red, and golden algae), including five previously untested species, were successfully recovered after freezing to ultra-low temperatures (−196 °C) using penetrating (dimethyl sulfoxide, glycerol, and ethylene glycol) and non-penetrating (trehalose and polyvinylpyrrolidone) cryoprotectants. We found that ethylene glycol in combination with trehalose possessed the most effective cryoprotective activity among the algae cryoprotectants tested. However, the chief factor for the successful preservation of microalgal cells during freeze–thawing was shown to be the cooling rate. Cooling was performed in two ways: step or fast droplet freezing. The droplet freezing described here was effective only for cryopreserving green algae, whereas step freezing was optimal for all other algal species. Three diatoms of the genus Attheya were successfully cryopreserved for the first time, but none of the tested protocols had a positive result for the diatoms belonging to Pseudo-nitzschia. The failure may be explained rather by peculiarities in the cell wall composition (higher content of silica and fewer organic components) than by the specific (long and thin) shape of these cells. The pigment content in all of the studied species tended to decrease after thawing as compared with unfrozen cells and increase significantly during cell recovery. Cryosensitivity of marine algae depended on the differences in natural intrinsic characteristics rather than their taxonomic position.

Redesign of PCR primers for mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I for marine invertebrates and application in all‐taxa biotic surveys

DNA barcoding is a powerful tool for species detection, identification and discovery. Metazoan DNA barcoding is primarily based upon a specific region of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene that is PCR amplified by primers HCO2198 and LCO1490 ('Folmer primers') designed by Folmer etal. (Molecular Marine Biology and Biotechnology, 3, 1994, 294). Analysis of sequences published since 1994 has revealed mismatches in the Folmer primers to many metazoans. These sequences also show that an extremely high level of degeneracy would be necessary in updated Folmer primers to maintain broad taxonomic utility. In primers jgHCO2198 and jgLCO1490, we replaced most fully degenerated sites with inosine nucleotides that complement all four natural nucleotides and modified other sites to better match major marine invertebrate groups. The modified primers were used to amplify and sequence cytochrome c oxidase subunit I from 9105 specimens from Moorea, French Polynesia and San Francisco Bay, California, USA representing 23 phyla, 42 classes and 121 orders. The new primers, jgHCO2198 and jgLCO1490, are well suited for routine DNA barcoding, all-taxon surveys and metazoan metagenomics.

국내외 해양생명공학 산업시장의 장기예측 및 함의

The marine biotechnology industry is very significant as compared to other industries as one of the driving forces for economic growth in the next generation in Korea. However, the marine biotechnology market has been considered as a component of the biotechnology industry market which made difficult for creating separate research areas in relation to the scope of the relevant industry market as well as making it difficult to establish its own R&D policy strategies. Accordingly, this study was executed to estimate the future long-term market value of the marine biotechnology within the limit of industrial field and to verify the importance of national R&D investment in marine biotechnology on the basis of estimations within the industrial perspective. To this end, we classified the marine biotechnology industry into the four sub-sectors and estimated the domestic and global industrial market in 2010 and 2024. According to the results, the domestic and global market of the marine biotechnology industry will see a remarkable growth by 2024. In particular, the bio-energy, pharmaceutical and functional foods industry markets will achieve astonishing advances. On the basis of the analysis results, Korea has to establish more progressive and aggressive R&D investment strategies to strengthen national competitiveness through the marine biotechnology industry.

AN EMERGING MARINE BIOTECHNOLOGY: MARINE DRUG DISCOVERY

Marine natural resources offer an opportunity to discover a novel chemical diversity withinterest ing pharmacologically active compounds to treat many diseases such as cancer,inflammation, bacterial and parasitic infections, and many other diseases. Marine drug discoveryis a rising area in marine biotechnology. Several hits of marine-derived drug compounds wereapproved; two of them are Ziconotide and Trabectedin. In 2004, Ziconotide was approved as paintreatment drugs in the United States and Europe. Then, in 2007, Trabectedin was also approvedas anticancer drug in Europe. The main problem in marine drug discovery research is materialsupply problem. Up till now, strategies to overcome the problem are “Pharmaceutical aquaculture”of biologically active marine biota and chemical synthesis approach. Chemical synthesis approachis feasible solution to be used, especially when working with less complex structure of compounds.However, when working with structurally complex compounds where total or even semi synthesiswas very difficult to be provided, aquaculture can be a solution. Currently, the use of microbiology,biochemistry, genetic, bioinformatics, genomic and meta-genomic has been intensifying in orderto have a better result in marine natural product drug discovery. As chemical synthesis needs anexpensive investment of advanced technology and highly skilled human resources, thuspharmaceutical aquaculture is more practicable to overcome the material supply insufficiency inIndonesia. Up till now, many Indonesian marine bioprospectors have been working with culturablemarine microorganism to produce bioactive compounds and some others starting to work withgenomic and metagenomic-based drug discovery.

Corrigendum to “Regulation of virulence factors by quorum sensing in Vibrio harveyi” [Vet. Microbiol. 154 (2011) 124–129

aboratory of Aquaculture & Artemia Reference Center, Ghent University, Rozier 44, B-9000 Gent, Belgium epartment of Aquaculture, Faculty of Agriculture, University Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia NESCO MIRCEN for Marine Biotechnology, Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University, College of Fisheries, ngalore 575002, Karnataka, India epartment of Livestock Production, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Sabaragamuwa University, Belihuloya, Sri Lanka

Policy to support marine biotechnology-based solutions to global challenges

Recent advances in science and technology are igniting new interest in marine biotechnology. Governments are recognizing the potential of marine biotechnology to provide solutions to grand global challenges of population health, food, and energy security and sustainable industry. This paper examines some of the challenges to and policy options for the development of marine biotechnology.

Purification and identification of novel angiotensin-I converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory peptides from cultured marine microalgae (Nannochloropsis oculata) protein hydrolysate

Isolation of bioactive compounds and commer- cialization of marine microalgae sources are interesting tar- gets in future marine biotechnology. Cultured biomass of the marine microalga, Nannochloropsis oculata, was used to purify angiotensin-I converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory peptides using proteases including pepsin, trypsin, α- chymotrypsin, papain, alcalase, and neutrase. The pepsin hydrolysate exhibited the highest ACE inhibitory activity, compared to the other hydrolysates and then was separated into three fractions (F1, F2, and F3) using Sephadex G-25 gel filtration column chromatography. First fraction (F1) showed the highest ACE inhibitory activity and it was further purified into two fractions (F1-1 and F1-2) using reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. The IC50 value of purified ACE inhibitory peptides were 123 and 173 μ Ma nd identified as novel peptides, Gly-Met-Asn-Asn-Leu-Thr-Pro (GMNNLTP; MW, 728 Da) and Leu-Glu-Gln (LEQ; MW, 369Da), respectively. In addition,nitric oxideproductionlevel (%) was significantly increased by the purified peptide (Gly- Met-Asn-Asn-Leu-Thr-Pro) compared to the purified peptide (Leu-Glu-Gln) and other treated pepsin hydrolysate fractions on human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). Cell viability assay showed no cytotoxicity on HUVECs with the treated purified peptides and fractions. These results suggest that the isolated peptides from cultured marine microalga, N. oculata protein sources may have potentiality to use commer- cially as ACE inhibitory agents in functional food industry.

Benefits of using algae as natural sources of functional ingredients.

Algae have been suggested as a potential source of bioactive compounds to be used in the food and pharmaceutical industries. With the strong development of functional foods as a method to improve or maintain health, the exploration of new compounds with real health effects is now an intense field of research. The potential use of algae as source of functional food ingredients, such as lipids, proteins, polysaccharides, phenolics, carotenoids, etc., is presented, together with the different possibilities of improving valuable metabolites production either using the tools and the knowledge provided by marine biotechnology or improving the different factors involved in the production on a large scale of such metabolites. The bio-refinery concept is also presented as a way to improve the efficient use of algae biomass while favouring process sustainability.

Recent advances in marine biotechnology

Recent advances in marine biotechnology

Omics in marine biotechnology

Omics in marine biotechnology

GIA 2011: Genomics in Aquaculture 2011 Symposium

Genomics, although a relatively young branch of science, has had a tremendous scientific, social, and economic impact in the world. Aquaculture genomics research started around 15 years ago, but progress at the beginning was slow due to limited funding. However, this situation has been changing due to technological advances that are accessible to aquaculture researchers. Among many of the technological advances, the next-generation sequencing technologies have had the largest impact on aquaculture genomics. Nowadays the sequencing cost is dropping rapidly, enabling studies of structure, expression, and function of the entire genome in a wide variety of aquaculture species. Along with the major progress made in aquaculture genomics in the last several years, there are major challenges in dealing with the huge amount of data. Large datasets in multiples of terabytes themselves pose challenges in data processing, analysis, and storage. More importantly, how to draw biological information useful for aquaculture out of the huge datasets is a tremendous challenge. Facing such challenges, the series of the Genomics in Aquaculture (GIA) symposium was born. The first GIA symposium was held in 2009. This symposium was funded by the Research Council of Norway (refs. 192126 and 190350) and organized by the University of Nordland (Norway) in collaboration with the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (Heraklion, Greece) and the National Institute of Nutrition and Seafood Research (Norway). Its remarkable success and the E. Sarropoulou (*) Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture, Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, P.O. Box 2214, 71003 Heraklion, Greece e-mail: sarris@her.hcmr.gr

Scientific Results of the Kumejima Marine Biodiversity Expedition — KUMEJIMA 2009 — Editorial

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