Marine Biotechnology: from Molecules to Aquaculture and Biomedicine

Chen, Thomas T.,Chun, Chang Zoon,Chiou, Peter,Chen, Maria J. The Korean Society for Marine Biotechnology 2006 한국해양바이오학회지 Vol.1 No.1

Marine biotechnology encompasses biotechnology in areas such as marine microbiology, biomedical important marine natural products, organisms in extreme environments, and aquaculture. Marine biotechnology, today, poised to flourish more than ever from the confluences that are occurring in fundamental research in modern biology and other areas of science. Using research results from our laboratory and those from others, we will review the current advances of marine biotechnology in this lecture.

Ecobiotechnology of Marine Sponges and Their Symbionts - Review and Present Status

Pallela, Ramjee,Kim, Se-Kwon The Korean Society for Marine Biotechnology 2011 한국해양바이오학회지 Vol.5 No.4

Marine sponges are a rich source of highly diversified bioactive compounds. These medicinally valuable molecules represent extreme physiological and ecological functions in sponges, more presumably involving in the resistance to the feeding by other marine organisms like fish and fouling by barnacles, bacteria, fungi, etc. This feature of attaining resistance made sponges as successful poriferans that possess an impressive array of biological properties ranging from antimicrobial to anticancerous activities. The diversified bioactive principle of sponges might be due to their spacio-temporal distribution and although, the gateway for exploiting the sponges for isolating these distinct, potential molecules is open, suitable technical and methodological approaches are yet to be implemented in order to bring the sponges as successful pharmaceutical leads in the field of marine biotechnology. Despite of the identified difficulties of marine sponge research from past few decades, one should concentrate not only on the basic and applied technical/methodological considerations, but also on the novel strategies like in vitro sponge cell, fragment and whole sponge culture; sponge symbiont cell culture; in situ and ex situ sponge cultivation; and sponge bioreactors and metagenomic approaches, for the successful exploitation of marine sponges towards the novelty in sponge biotechnology. The present review narrates the pros and cons of the nowadays-marine sponge research by focusing on the suggestive ecobiotechnological approaches, based on the latest studies for feasible ecological exploitation and biotechnological application of sponges from the sea.

Recent Prospect of Compounds Derived from Marine Macroalgae for Medicinal Application of Anti-Inflammation for Chemoprevention of Cancer

Kim, Moon-Moo The Korean Society for Marine Biotechnology 2011 한국해양바이오학회지 Vol.5 No.4

Although marine living organism contains a numerious number of compounds, it is difficult to collect these compounds in a large scale for medicinal application. However, in recent years, several bioactive compounds isolated from marine macroalgae have been proved to be able to provide potential sources for development of medicinal products because they can be obtained in large amount from marine. A number of studies have reported a variety of effects of marine macroalgae but a few anti-inflammatory activity of marine macroalgae have recently been published. Herein, we reviewed novel anti-inflammatory compounds recently isolated from marine brown algae, green algae and red algae. From this survey, in particular, some compounds contained in edible macroalgae exert anti-inflammatory effects with inhibition on cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), inducible nitric oxide synthase(iNOS) and matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) activity regulated by nuclear factor-kappa B transcription factor that play a key role in cancer as well as inflammation, demonstrating to be able to potentially apply to development of anti-inflammatory agent for chemoprevention of cancer. Furthermore, some macroalgae and their compounds with both excellent anti-inflammatory activity and very low toxicity can select a potential candidates capable of preventing or treating several chronic inflammation such as colitis, hepatitis and gastritis, leading to cancer.

Beneficial Effects of Marine Bioactive Substances on Bone Health, via Osteoarthritis Inhibition and Osteoblast Differentiation

Nguyen, Minh Hong Thi,Qian, Zhong-Ji,Jung, Won-Kyo The Korean Society for Marine Biotechnology 2011 한국해양바이오학회지 Vol.5 No.4

Bone health is maintained by balance between bone resorption and bone formation, and bone homeostasis requires balanced interactions between osteoblasts and osteoclasts. Most of drugs and functional foods for bone health have been developed as bone resorption inhibitors, which maintain bone mass by inhibiting the function of osteoclasts. The recent studies have shown beneficial effects of marine natural products on bone health. Therefore, this review is aimed to study effects of marine-derived natural substances on osteoarthritis inhibition via attenuation of MMPs and osteoblastic differentiation via activation of alkaline phosphatase (ALP), osteoclacin (OC), bone morphogenic protein-2 (BMP-2) as an important factor for bone formation, and mineralization. The present review can provide new insights in the osteoblastic differentiation of marine natural products and possibility for their application in bone health supplement.

Marine Biodiversity Study and Biotechnology Exploitation in China

Liu, J.Y. The Korean Society for Marine Biotechnology 2006 한국해양바이오학회지 Vol.1 No.1

Large scale marine biodiversity studies in China have been carried out for more than half a century since the founding of the Institute of Oceanology, CAS, in 1950. Through a series of coastal and multi-disciplinary oceanographic investigations in the shelf seas and biodiversity studies since the late fifties, a total of 20,278 species of marine biota have been recorded upto 1994. Recent intensive studies have further revealed the richness of marine biota of the China seas,a great number of marine species have been found and many new taxa established. The total species number of main biotic groups increased about 50 % of that estimated in 1994. The results have promoted the fast development of China's marine fisheries, medicine (drug) and biodiversity research, and attracted many scientists, particularly bio-technologists, to join their studies. Environmental deterioration and human activity strongly stressed the sustainable development and conservation of marine bio-diversity, and resulted in the increase of end angered species as record ed in the new published ${\ll}$China Species Red List${\gg}$ with the threatened category of species assessed by adopting the new IUCN criteria. To further reveal the high diversity and their history, present status and future of marine organisms existed in the world ocean, an international Project ${\ll}$Census of Marine Life (CoML)${\gg}$ was established in 2000 in the USA. Scientists predicted that 2 to 3 times of numbers of the known species will possibly be found in various marine habitats, particularly the abyssal ocean. The Research Plan and the Projects were briefly introduced, and the relationship between marine biodiversity and biotechnology was discussed. The Project planned to apply new and high techniques and new equipments on board research vessel and in laboratory. Brief review of recent advances of Chinas' marine biodiversity and biotechnology studies indicated that fascinate results have been achcieved; but further effort should be made to promote the continuous advance of our basic researches and their application in related production and maintain sustainable development.

Bioactive Natural Products from Chinese Tropical Marine Plants and Invertebrates

Guo, Y.W.,Huang, X.C.,Zhang, W.,Sun, Y.Q. The Korean Society for Marine Biotechnology 2006 한국해양바이오학회지 Vol.1 No.1

This paper deals mainly with chemical and biological investigations, recently effected in the authors' laboratory, of Chinese tropical marine plants and invertebrates on three topics: 1) an unusual macrocyclic polydisulfide from the Chinese mangrove Bruguiera gymnorrhiza; 2) polyhydroxylpolyene compounds from marine dinoflagellate Amphidinium sp.; 3) two new series of uncommon steroids from marine in vertebrates.

Bioactive Marine Natural Products in Drug Development

Kim, Se-Kwon,Ravichandran, Y. Dominic,Kim, Moon-Moo,Jung, Won-Kyo The Korean Society for Marine Biotechnology 2007 한국해양바이오학회지 Vol.2 No.4

Nature is one of the most important sources of pharmacologically active compounds in the search for drugs against life threatening diseases. Even though plants and terrestrial microorganisms have played as an important source for the new drug candidates from nature, marine organisms such as tunicates, sponges, soft corals, sea horses, sea snakes, marine mollusks, seaweeds, nudibranches, sea slugs and marine microorganisms are increasingly attracting attention in recent years. Marine organisms also have the potential to develop into future drugs against important diseases, such as cancer, a range of bacterial and viral diseases, malaria, and inflammations. Even though the mechanism of action in the molecular level of most metabolites is still unclear, the mechanisms by which they interfere with the pathogenesis of a wide range of diseases have been reported. The knowledge of this is one of the key factors necessary to develop bioactive compounds into medicines. This is due to their structurally unique and pharmacologically active compounds. The potential pharmaceutical, medicinal and research applications of some of these compounds are discussed in hundreds of scientific papers, and are reviewed here.

Model Plants in Marine Biotechnology

Saga, Naotsune,Endo, Hirotoshi The Korean Society for Marine Biotechnology 2010 한국해양바이오학회지 Vol.4 No.1

The genus Porphyra, consisting of 133 species includes several economically valuable species (i.e. P. yezoensis, P. tenera, P. pseudolinearis etc.). They are predominantly consumed and cultivated in East Asian countries such as Japan, Korea and China, and they are regarded as a big commercial market today. In addition to the industrial importance, P. yezoensis is currently regarded as a feasible candidate for a model plant in marine biotechnology, therefore there are a wide range of studies being undertaken: strain-preservation, development of mutant strains and genetic analysis and exhaustive molecular analysis including EST and macro/micro array. Focusing on the activities of our research group, current situation and future perspectives in marine biotechnological studies using P. yezoensis will be discussed in this mini review.

Marine Microalgal Transgenesis: Applications to Biotechnology and Human Functional Foods

Kim, Young Tae The Korean Society for Marine Biotechnology 2006 한국해양바이오학회지 Vol.1 No.1

Molecular biology and microalgal biotechnology have the potential to play a major role in improving the production efficiency of a vast variety of products including functional foods, industrial chemicals, compounds with therapeutic applications and bioremediation solutions from a virtually untapped source. Microalgae are a source of natural products and have been recently studied for biotechnological applications. Efficient genetic transformation systems in microalgae are necessary to enhance their potential to be used for human health. A microalga such as Chlarella is a eukaryotic organism sharing its metabolic pathways with higher plants. This microalga is capable of expressing, glycosylating, and correctly processing proteins which normally undergo post-translational modification. Moreover, it can be cultured inexpensively because it requires only limited amount of sunlight and carbon dioxide as energy sources. Because of these advantages, Chlarella may be of great potential interest in biotechnology as a good candidate for bioreactor in the production of pharmaceutical and industrial compounds for human functional foods. Here, we briefly discuss recent progress in microalgal transgenesis that has utilized molecular biology to produce functional proteins and bioactive compounds.

Recent Discovery of Bioactive Natural Products from Taiwanese Marine Invertebrates

Shen, Ya-Ching The Korean Society for Marine Biotechnology 2006 한국해양바이오학회지 Vol.1 No.4

The secondary metabolites from Taiwanese marine soft corals and sponges have attracted much attention because they possess considerable potential biological activities. To explore the origin of bioactivity, many cytotoxic natural products were isolated and characterized in the past few years. For examples, The lipophilic extracts from marine sponges Petrosia elastica and Ircinia formosana were found active against several human tumor cells. The investigation of the gorgonian Junceela has also resulted in the discovery of a series of new juncenolides. Bioassay-directed fractionation of Clavularia viridis yielded seven new prostanoids. These compounds have been tested and evaluated as potential antitumor agents. The soft corals of the genus Cespitularia produced novel secondary metabolites with diverse chemical structures and interesting biological activities. Four new norditerpenoids, designated cespitulactones and cespihypotins were isolated from Cespitularia hypotentaculata. Cespitulactones are novel structures having a bond cleavage between C-10 and C-11. In addition, three novel diterpenes were isolated from C. taeniata and designated cespitulactams A, B and C having a phenylethyl amino side chain.