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?