Green Algae Strategy Products - FineMedicines

Possibly the highest value algae coproducts are pharmaceuticals, vaccines, that his sins and nutraceuticals.

Algae are used to make capsules and tablets, baulking agents, suppositories, radiology suspending agents, anticoagulants, lotions and creams and antiulcer products.

A large number of antibiotic compounds, many with novel structures, have been isolated and characterized in algae. Cyanobacteria, blue-green algae have been able to produce antiviral, antineoplastic and other pharmacologically active compounds

Bioactive algae compounds are finding applications in both human and veterinary medicine and in agriculture. Other applications include research tools or as structural models for the development of new drugs. Algae are attractive as natural sources of bioactive molecules since they have the potential to produce compounds in a culture which enables the production of structurally complex molecules which are difficult or impossible to produce by chemical synthesis.

Therapeutic and diagnostic pharmaceuticals based on algae recombinant proteins have been developed recently, including vaccines, antibodies, hormones and enzymes.

Intensive R&D is focused on technologies that will enable algae to serve as protein factories. Recombinant human proteins expressed in plants tend to show the same activity as the original protein. Algae cultivation is faster and less costly than using higher plants or animals as biofactories. One of the major difficulties with using plant models is that the recombinant protein must be purified from the plant material and those activities takes time and energy.

The cultivation of transgenic plants poses the danger of propagation of the transgenic spores or fragments. This could lead to uncontrolled expression of pharmaceutical proteins in non-target algae as well as propagation of resistance marker genes. However, cultivation in closed CAPS prevents the release of genetically modified organisms into the environment and allows for safe production.

A novel cultivation strategy uses algae strains with defects in metabolism for protein production without the need for resistance marker genes. Strains of algae with defective cell walls prevent unintentional propagation of transgenic material because the cells do not survive outside the carefully controlled environment. The cell wall defective proteins  enable the recombinant proteins to be targeted with precision. Another advantage of the defective cell wall algae model is that the target protein can be separated from the surrounding medium faster and easier than other systems.