Seaweed - Marie lecs (3)

Case study 1: Sea lettuce and functional foods

  • Ulva (simple structure), all material is photosynethetic.

  • Bioactives are evenly distributed throughout the biomass, making it easy to extract and process

  • Product - Ulvans between cells in the tissue, consisting of repeating sugar units.

Sea lettuce and integrated aquaculture:

  • Prawn aquaculture

Products

  • Has lipids and fatty acids, high content on soluble fibre and mineral content

  • Fibre supplement, to help with metabolic syndrome

-Supplement trials were then conducted on rats

-Ulva reduced fat waste of 25%

-Insulin sensitivity

  • Potential lower diabetes through ulva intervention

Case study 2: Seaweed and crop protection (Induce resistance in plant disease control)

  • Trigger immune responses

  • Novel CPPs Elicitors or priming, in plants that can help with immune defense

  • ROS is triggered by elicitor in plant cell, and causes and oxidative burst

  • Polysaccharides are a source of endogenous and exogenous elicitiors. (High metabolic price)

  • Rhamnogalacturonan - Structural unit to ulvan

  • Main drawbacks, are there has been different types of orbin, menaing they have different way of extracting from it. So testing in different plant systems will have variable results which make it difficult to create product, but by doing it a standardised way it will be better to compare viable results.

  • Ulvan, spray kiwi fruit with ulvan, after a certain period quantify the amount of disease incidents, to make a commercial product. There is alot needed to satisfy industry regularors of safety.

Case study 3: Seaweed and methane emissions

  • Asparagopsis armata to reduce methane emissions from livestock.

  • Aquaculture is better than any other terrestrial feed

  • Methanogenesis - Microbes use grass to ferment, and create fatty acids, use CO2 through respiration makes hydrogen gas. Too much hydroge gas can cause cows to be malnutrition.

  • HMA’s inhibit the key steps of methanogenesis.

  • Seaweed anti-methanogenesis bioactives

- Chloroform

-Bromoform

  • Evidence food conversion efficiency

  • No HMA found in meat or animal products

  • Currently development focused on satbilisation and feed formulations for delivery across production systems.

-

  1. HMA’s bind to cobalamin

  2. Inhibit methyl transfer in methangonesis

  3. Methanogen energy production efficiency reduced

Drawbacks:

  • Bromoform, does not travel to far into the atmosphere, casues ozone depletion.