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"Chitin Biotechnology."
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Chitin and Chitosan
This book presents a comprehensive review of the isolation, properties and applications of chitin and chitosan. These promising biomaterials have the potential to be broadly applied and there is a growing market for these biopolymers in areas such as medical and pharmaceutical, packaging, agricultural, textile, cosmetics, nanoparticles and more. The authors - noted experts in the field - explore the isolation, characterization and the physical and chemical properties of chitin and chitosan. They also examine their properties such as hydrogels, immunomodulation and biotechnology, antimicrobial activity and chemical enzymatic modifications. The book offers an analysis of the myriad medical and pharmaceutical applications as well as a review of applications in other areas. In addition, the authors discuss regulations, markets and perspectives for the use of chitin and chitosan.
eBook
Fuels, Chemicals and Materials from the Oceans and Aquatic Sources
Fuels, Chemicals and Materials from the Oceans and Aquatic Sources provides a holistic view of fuels, chemicals and materials from renewable sources in the oceans and other aquatic media. It presents established and recent results regarding the use of water-based biomass, both plants and animals,for value-added applications beyond food. The book begins with an introductory chapter which provides an overview of ocean and aquatic sources for the production of chemicals and materials. Subsequent chapters focus on the use of various ocean bioresources and feedstocks, including microalgae, macroalgae, and waste from aquaculture and fishing industries, including fish oils, crustacean and mollusc shells. Fuels, Chemicals and Materials from the Oceans and Aquatic Sources serves as a valuable reference for academic and industrial professionals working on the production of chemicals, materials and fuels from renewable feedstocks. It will also prove useful for researchers in the fields of green and sustainable chemistry, marine sciences and biotechnology. Topics covered include: • Production and conversion of green macroalgae • Marine macroalgal biomass as an energy feedstock • Microalgae bioproduction • Bioproduction and utilization of chitin and chitosan • Applications of mollusc shells • Crude fish oil as a potential fuel
eBook
Flexible Fungal Materials: Shaping the Future
Fungi are a revolutionary, smart, and sustainable manufacturing platform that can be used to upcycle byproducts and wastes into flexible fungal materials (FFMs) such as chitin- and β-glucan-based foams, paper, and textiles. With highly adaptable manufacturing pathways, the efficiency and properties of these materials depend on the biomass source and fermentation method. Liquid substrates provide fast, upscalable, and compact production processes but are susceptible to contamination and are limited to paper-like materials for printing, wound dressings, and membranes. Solid-state fermentation is cheaper but struggles to deliver homogeneous fungal growth and is used to produce fungal foams for packaging, insulation, textiles, and leather substitutes. The broad range of applications and uses of biological organisms in materials hallmarks fungi as forerunners in improving environmental sustainability globally.
Biological fungal growth upcycles agroindustrial byproducts and wastes into functional and sustainable flexible materials under ambient conditions.Highly adaptable manufacturing processes facilitate the use of multiple raw material sources and fermentation techniques for the same product.Liquid byproducts are upcycled into paper-like materials for printing, wound dressings, filtration membranes, and coatings.Solid residues are transformed into insulation, textiles, and leather substitutes.The range of products and applications, coupled with the potential for rapid adoption across existing industries, facilitate the rapid replacement of synthetic materials and improved global sustainability.
Journal Article
Distinct cellular and molecular mechanisms contribute to the specificity of the two Drosophila melanogaster chitin synthases in chitin deposition
Chitin is a major component of arthropod extracellular matrices, including the exoskeleton and the midgut peritrophic matrix. It plays a key role in the development, growth and viability of insects. Beyond the biological importance of this aminopolysaccharide, chitin also receives considerable attention for its practical applications in medicine and biotechnology, as it is a superior biopolymer with excellent physicochemical and mechanical properties. Chitin is synthesised and deposited extracellularly by chitin synthases. Most insects encode two types of chitin synthases: type A, which are presumed to be required for exoskeleton formation, and type B, which are thought to produce the peritrophic matrix. However, the factors that contribute to the specificity of each type of chitin synthase remain unclear. Here, we leverage the advantages of Drosophila melanogaster for functional manipulations to evaluate the mechanisms of activity and the functional requirements of Kkv (Chitin synthase A) and Chs2 (Chitin synthase B). We first demonstrate that Chs2 is expressed and required in a specific region of the larval proventriculus responsible for producing chitin in the peritrophic matrix. We then assess whether the two chitin synthases can functionally substitute for each other. Additionally, we examine their subcellular localisation in different tissues and their ability to deposit chitin in combination with known auxiliary proteins. Our results indicate that these two different chitin synthases are not functionally interchangeable and that they use distinct cellular and molecular mechanisms to deposit chitin. We suggest that the specificity of insect chitin synthases may underlie the production of chitin polymers with different properties, conferring different physiological activities to the extracellular matrices.
Journal Article
Express Method for Isolation of Ready-to-Use 3D Chitin Scaffolds from Aplysina archeri (Aplysineidae: Verongiida) Demosponge
Sponges are a valuable source of natural compounds and biomaterials for many biotechnological applications. Marine sponges belonging to the order Verongiida are known to contain both chitin and biologically active bromotyrosines. Aplysina archeri (Aplysineidae: Verongiida) is well known to contain bromotyrosines with relevant bioactivity against human and animal diseases. The aim of this study was to develop an express method for the production of naturally prefabricated 3D chitin and bromotyrosine-containing extracts simultaneously. This new method is based on microwave irradiation (MWI) together with stepwise treatment using 1% sodium hydroxide, 20% acetic acid, and 30% hydrogen peroxide. This approach, which takes up to 1 h, made it possible to isolate chitin from the tube-like skeleton of A. archeri and to demonstrate the presence of this biopolymer in this sponge for the first time. Additionally, this procedure does not deacetylate chitin to chitosan and enables the recovery of ready-to-use 3D chitin scaffolds without destruction of the unique tube-like fibrous interconnected structure of the isolated biomaterial. Furthermore, these mechanically stressed fibers still have the capacity for saturation with water, methylene blue dye, crude oil, and blood, which is necessary for the application of such renewable 3D chitinous centimeter-sized scaffolds in diverse technological and biomedical fields.
Journal Article
Current Status and New Perspectives on Chitin and Chitosan as Functional Biopolymers
The natural biopolymer chitin and its deacetylated product chitosan are found abundantly in nature as structural building blocks and are used in all sectors of human activities like materials science, nutrition, health care, and energy. Far from being fully recognized, these polymers are able to open opportunities for completely novel applications due to their exceptional properties which an economic value is intrinsically entrapped. On a commercial scale, chitosan is mainly obtained from crustacean shells rather than from the fungal and insect sources. Significant efforts have been devoted to commercialize chitosan extracted from fungal and insect sources to completely replace crustacean-derived chitosan. However, the traditional chitin extraction processes are laden with many disadvantages. The present review discusses the potential bioextraction of chitosan from fungal, insect, and crustacean as well as its superior physico-chemical properties. The different aspects of fungal, insects, and crustacean chitosan extraction methods and various parameters having an effect on the yield of chitin and chitosan are discussed in detail. In addition, this review also deals with essential attributes of chitosan for high value-added applications in different fields and highlighted new perspectives on the production of chitin and deacetylated chitosan from different sources with the concomitant reduction of the environmental impact.
Journal Article
Enzymatic Modification of Native Chitin and Conversion to Specialty Chemical Products
Chitin is one of the most abundant biomolecules on earth, occurring in crustacean shells and cell walls of fungi. While the polysaccharide is threatening to pollute coastal ecosystems in the form of accumulating shell-waste, it has the potential to be converted into highly profitable derivatives with applications in medicine, biotechnology, and wastewater treatment, among others. Traditionally this is still mostly done by the employment of aggressive chemicals, yielding low quality while producing toxic by-products. In the last decades, the enzymatic conversion of chitin has been on the rise, albeit still not on the same level of cost-effectiveness compared to the traditional methods due to its multi-step character. Another severe drawback of the biotechnological approach is the highly ordered structure of chitin, which renders it nigh impossible for most glycosidic hydrolases to act upon. So far, only the Auxiliary Activity 10 family (AA10), including lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases (LPMOs), is known to hydrolyse native recalcitrant chitin, which spares the expensive first step of chemical or mechanical pre-treatment to enlarge the substrate surface. The main advantages of enzymatic conversion of chitin over conventional chemical methods are the biocompability and, more strikingly, the higher product specificity, product quality, and yield of the process. Products with a higher Mw due to no unspecific depolymerisation besides an exactly defined degree and pattern of acetylation can be yielded. This provides a new toolset of thousands of new chitin and chitosan derivatives, as the physio-chemical properties can be modified according to the desired application. This review aims to provide an overview of the biotechnological tools currently at hand, as well as challenges and crucial steps to achieve the long-term goal of enzymatic conversion of native chitin into specialty chemical products.
Journal Article
Cell walls of filamentous fungi – challenges and opportunities for biotechnology
The cell wall of filamentous fungi is essential for growth and development, both of which are crucial for fermentations that play a vital role in the bioeconomy. It typically has an inner rigid core composed of chitin and beta-1,3-/beta-1,6-glucans and a rather gel-like outer layer containing other polysaccharides and glycoproteins varying between and within species. Only a fraction of filamentous fungal species is used for the biotechnological production of enzymes, organic acids, and bioactive compounds such as antibiotics in large amounts on a yearly basis by precision fermentation. Most of these products are secreted into the production medium and must therefore pass through fungal cell walls at high transfer rates. Thus, cell wall mutants have gained interest for industrial enzyme production, although the causal relationship between cell walls and productivity requires further elucidation. Additionally, the extraction of valuable biopolymers like chitin and chitosan from spent fungal biomass, which is predominantly composed of cell walls, represents an underexplored opportunity for circular bioeconomy. Questions persist regarding the effective extraction of these biopolymers from the cell wall and their repurposing in valorization processes. This review aims to address these issues and promote further research on understanding the cell walls in filamentous fungi to optimize their biotechnological use.
Key points
• The highly complex cell walls of filamentous fungi are important for biotechnology.
• Cell wall mutants show promising potential to improve industrial enzyme secretion.
• Recent studies revealed enhanced avenues for chitin/chitosan from fungal biomass.
Graphical Abstract
Journal Article
Knockdown of five trehalase genes using RNA interference regulates the gene expression of the chitin biosynthesis pathway in Tribolium castaneum
Background
RNA interference is a very effective approach for studies on gene function and may be an efficient method for controlling pests. Trehalase is a key gene in the chitin biosynthesis pathway in insects. Five trehalase genes have been cloned in
Tribolium castaneum
, though it is not known whether the detailed functions of these trehalases can be targeted for pest control.
Results
The functions of all five trehalase genes were studied using RNAi, and the most important results showed that the expression of all 12 genes decreased significantly from 12 to 72 h compared with the control groups, except
GP1
at 72 h, when the expression of the
TcTre2
gene was suppressed. The results also revealed different abnormal phenotypes, and the observed mortality rates ranged from 17 to 42 %. The qRT-PCR results showed that the expression of
TPS
,
GS
, two
GP
,
CHS1a
and
CHS1b
genes decreased significantly, while that of the
CHS2
gene decreased or increased after RNAi after the five trehalases were silenced at 48 h. In addition,
TPS
gene expression decreased from 12 to 72 h after dsTcTre injection.
Conclusions
These results demonstrate that silencing of any individual trehalase gene, especially
Tre1
-
4
and
Tre2
gene can lead to moulting deformities and a high mortality rate through the regulation of gene expression in the chitin biosynthesis pathway and may be a potential approach for pest control in the future.
Journal Article