EURO-ECO 2010 Hanover 2 - 3 Dezember 2010	Environmental, Engineering - Economic and Legal Aspects for Sustainable Living
	European Academy of Natural Sciences, Hanover European Scientific Society, Hanover University of Bremen, Bremen

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Nowadays, scientists around the world are paying close attention to studying the biotechnological potential of marine resources. One of the most common, but at the same time the least used sources of raw materials, are algae genera Fucus and Laminaria, are widely grown in northern and eastern waters of the Russian Federation. Seaweed genus Fucus are used as fertilizer and fish meal, but in most parts the collection of algae are not kept, but they are only a pollutant coast and the coastal zone. However, these algae are the valuable source of biologically active substances, such as fucose, the contents of which are up to 7%.

Fucose refers to the so-called minor sugars and plays a unique biological role in living organisms: take part of the carbohydrate part of many hormones, is a marker of blood involved in the synthesis of antibodies, and therefore in shaping the immune response, plays an important role in cell differentiation, intermolecular and intercellular recognition. Accordingly, preparations of pure fucose and fucose-containing oligo- and polysaccharides (fucoidans) have a broad spectrum of biological activity. However, the use of Fucus as a source for the production of fucose is difficult because of the lack of simple and inexpensive methods of fucoidans hydrolysis and isolation of pure fucose.

We have developed a biotechnology of fucose from plant material. The main problem in the development of this technology was the lack of industrial enzymes that can efficiently hydrolyze fucoidan. Therefore, we performed a broad screening of microorganisms possessing carbohydrates hydrolyzing activity, and the results of selected strain of A. awamori, which has high fucosidase activity. Optimal conditions for fucosidase biosynthesis by selected producer were found: temperature 30 °C, pH 7.0-7.5, the concentration of fucoidan as inducer 0.5 %, the duration of cultivation of 72 h. Optimization of cultivation conditions allowed to increase the activity of enzyme precipitated by alcohol in 28%.

Also the rational conditions for hydrolysis of fucoidan by derived enzyme preparation were chosen, resulting in a release fucose 83-85% of the weight of fucoidan, which is quite a high rate and demonstrates the usefulness of this method of hydrolysis for industrial applications.

As a result, the technology for production of fucose from algae has developed, which includes the extraction of fucoidan, fucoidan enzymatic hydrolysis by obtained enzyme, purification of fucose by ion-exchange chromatography and drying. Developed biotechnology can reach the output of fucose in 4.1% of air dry biomass algae.

Currently research on the effect of fucose on the immune status and reproductive function of a living organism are conducting, as well as its prebiotic activity, with the aim of creating on the basis of a developed biotechnology of fucose substances for food, pharmaceutical and feed industries.

This work was supported by the Federal Target Program “Research and scientific-pedagogical staff for Innovative Russia” for 2009-2013.