Ilkworm Biofactory

Silkworm Biofactory

While silk derived from silkworm has been of economic importance for centuries, more recently silkworm has been found to have utility in biomedicine. This has attracted attention for expressing eukaryotic recombinant proteins, which require post-translational modifications. In 1985 Dr. Susumu Maeda demonstrated that silkworm larvae could produce a functional human-interferon. Since then various techniques have been developed to express recombinant proteins in silkworm. With the development of the Bombyx mori nucleopolyhedrovirus (BmNPV) bacmid system, which is capable of replicating in both Escherichia coli and Bombyx mori derived cell lines or silkworm, silkworm larvae or pupae have been used for the expression system for recombinant protein production. This method has the advantage of a bacmid, in that it can be easily prepared for sufficient bacmid DNA for subsequent expression in silkworm. It is potentially a big breakthrough in production of recombinant eukaryotic proteins and viruses, which will be a powerful tool in a new proteome era. This volume contributes to the advancement of our knowledge in the subject, for example gene expression systems and silkworm research, and focuses on silkworm biofactories for the recombinant protein production and commercial applications of proteins.

Microbial Surfactants

Biosurfactants are the surface-active biomolecules produced by a wide range of microorganisms. The enormous diversity of biosurfactants make them an interesting group of molecules. Biosurfactants, are less toxic, eco-friendly and possess amphiphatic structure. Due to these and many other useful properties, biosurfactants play a significant role in oil recovery, waste utilization and bioremediation of industrial effluents; hydrocarbons, pesticides and toxic heavy metals and many other hazardous substances. Biosurfactants offer numerous advantages over chemical surfactants. They are environmentally friendly, can be produced from natural sources, less toxic, possess high specificity, have better foaming and emulsifying properties and survive extreme conditions such as high temperatures, extreme pH and salinity. They are cheaper as they can be produced from industrial waste and from by-products as opposed to chemical surfactants. This volume comprises concepts, classification, production and applications of biosurfactants in oil recovery, environment and clean up, etc. It is an excellent literature on fermentation, recovery, genomics and metagenomics of biosurfactant production. It is presented in an easy-to-understand manner, with well-illustrated diagrams, protocols, figures, and recent data on the production, formulation and commercialization and other aspects of biosurfactants. As such, the book will be useful for students, researchers, teachers, and entrepreneurs in the area of PGPR and its allied fields.

Indian Science Abstracts