Plenary Lectures

Pete Bixler took his ScD in Chemical Engineering at MIT and joined the faculty in 1961. His specialty in those days was membrane separations. He was one of the founders of Amicon Corporation which became a leader in ultrafiltration membranes and laboratory hardware for protein concentration and separation. He left Amicon in 1969 to join Marine Colloids, Inc, a major producer of carrageenan. He became President of Marine Colloids in 1972, a position he held until 1979 when the company was acquired by FMC. His next position of note was becoming associated with Shemberg Corp. in the Philippines. He also founded a marketing company in 1992 to handle the Shemberg carrageenan products in the US. By 2002, the company was well-established under the name of Ingredients Solutions, Inc. Pete at this point began to think about retirement and succession in the company, so he sold his shares to key employees. He maintains an informal relationship with the company, but spends most of his time as President of Marinalg International, plus serving on boards such as the Advisory Board of Acadian Seaplants Ltd.

Hans Porse has a commercial education and background. He worked for many years with CP Kelco ApS (formerly Copenhagen Pectin A/S) of which nearly 25 years were spent in the Asia-Pacific region besides assignments in Europe, Africa and the Americas. He has over the years been working in positions including regional & global director, president and chairman within areas like carrageenan seaweed sourcing and procurement, setting up carrageenan processing plants in the Philippines and carrageenan sales & marketing. He pioneered introduction of seaweed farming in Indonesia back in the late 1970's. He has authored several papers about the seaweed industry. Currently he resides in Denmark and is involved with strategic advisory and facilitating services to the hydrocolloids industry.

A Decade of Change in the Seaweed Hydrocolloids Industry

Seaweed hydrocolloid markets continue to grow on the order of 3%-5% per year, largely driven by emerging markets in China, Eastern Europe, Brazil, etc. Sales of agar, alginates and carrageenans in the US and Europe, are holding up reasonably well in spite of the recession. However, price increases to offset costs in 2008 and 2009 have begun to have a dampening effect on sales, especially in markets where substitution or extension with less expensive ingredients is possible. These higher prices have been driven by higher energy, chemicals and seaweed costs. The higher seaweed costs reflect seaweed shortages, particularly for carrageenan-bearing seaweeds. The Philippines and Indonesia are the dominant producers of the farmed Kappaphycus and Eucheuma species upon which the carrageenan industry depends and both countries are experiencing factors limiting seaweed production. Similar tightening of seaweed supplies are beginning to show up in brown seaweeds used for alginates production.

The structure of the industry is also undergoing change. Producers in China are getting stronger, and while they have not yet developed the marketing skills to compete effectively in the developed world markets, they have captured much of their home market. China does not produce the red and brown seaweeds needed for higher end food hydrocolloid production. Stocking their factories with raw material has led to the supply problems.

Sales growth continues to suffer from few new product development successes in recent years; although some health care applications are showing some promise, i.e. carrageenan gel capsules and alginate micro-beads. Excessive regulatory activities, unfounded anti-food additive attitudes of consumers, particularly in the EU, continue to absorb human resources that otherwise could be applied to problems limiting industry growth and profitability.

Susan Brawley is a Professor of Botany in the School of Marine Sciences at the University of Maine (USA). Susan received her Bachelors of Arts degree (with honors) in Biological Sciences from Wellesley College (Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA) in 1973. In 1978 she was awarded her Ph.D. (in Botany) from the University of California (Berkeley, California, USA). She has held faculty positions in the department of Biology at Vanderbilt University, research associate in the Physiology Department at the University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, CT and an honorary senior research fellow at the University of Birmingham (UK). Susan has been the principal investigator on numerous research grants from the US National Science Foundation, Maine Sea Grant College Program (NOAA) and the National Geographic Society. She was the 1997 recipient of the George F. Papenfuss Prize at the Int. Phycol. Congress (Leiden, The Netherlands) and 2002 Award of Merit from the Phycological Society of America. Susan has also served as Editor of the Journal of Phycology (1996-2001) and is Principal Investigator (PI) for the Porphyra umbilicalis Genome Project and the NSF Research Collaboration Network on Porphyra-Algal Genomics. Her research focus is on algal reproduction.

Porphyra: Crop to Model System

Brawley, S. H., School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469 USA; Blouin, N. A., School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469 USA; Zhang, Y. Y., Dept. of Marine Science, University of Connecticut, Groton, CT 06340; Yarish, C., Dept. of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology & Marine Sciences, University of Connecticut, Stamford, CT 06901; Lin, S., Dept. of Marine Science, University of Connecticut, Groton, CT 06340; Stiller, J. W., Department of Biology, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858; Chan, C. X., Dept. of Ecology, Evolution & Natural Resources, Rutgers, New Brunswick, NJ 08901; Bhattacharya, D., Dept. of Ecology, Evolution & Natural Resources, Rutgers, New Brunswick, NJ 08901; Grossman, A. C., Department of Plant Biology, Carnegie Institution, Stanford, CA 94305 

Porphyra spp. are part of an ancient eukaryotic lineage, the Bangiophyceae, which is represented by fossils 1.2 billion years in age. More than 115 species are known to science, and many cryptic species are being revealed by molecular analyses. An alternation of generations is found between the commercially important blade (gametophyte) and the microscopic, filamentous “conchocelis” (sporophyte). Porphyra spp. are prized for food by humans, and a $1.4 billion/year aquaculture industry exists in Asia, made possible by breakthroughs in understanding of the Porphyra life history. Attempts are now underway to develop other species of Porphyra as aquaculture crops in the U.S., South America and Europe. One of these is Porphyra umbilicalis, which is now being used by the Joint Genome Institute (U.S. Dept. of Energy) for whole genome sequence analysis. P. umbilicalis is predominantly sexual in the northeastern Atlantic, but reproduces asexually on the Maine (USA) coast by neutral spores; this feature has permitted the preparation of adequate quantities of DNA from a single genotype for completing the genome sequence. Based on initial sequence analyses, the Porphyra genome is ~ 270 Mb and is G-C rich. To complement our analysis of the full genome sequence and facilitate the development of accurate gene models, EST sequences are being generated from P. umbilicalis and the closely related P. purpurea during exposure to a variety of conditions (e.g., different reproductive phases, circadian times, nutrient regimes, desiccation conditions, irradiances). This talk will review aspects of the biology and cultivation of Porphyra for food and other products, and will include discussion of needed tool development in order that the genomic data can lead to significant advances in research on stress tolerance, carbon metabolism, and evolution of the cell and multicellular body plans.

James S. Craigie currently is Researcher Emeritus, National Research Council of Canada, and Science Advisor for Acadian Seaplants Limited. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1959 from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Additional research and studies were continued at CNRA, Versailles and at the University College of Wales, Swansea. Dr. Craigie returned to Canada in 1960 to accept a phycology position at the Atlantic Regional Laboratory (now the Institute for Marine Biosciences), National Research Council of Canada, Halifax, NS. He was a Visiting Scholar 1967-68 at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego.

Jim is a charter member and past president of the Canadian Society of Plant Physiologists, and has served as Editor of the Journal of Phycology and as Associate Editor of the Journal of the World Aquaculture Society. His interests encompass algal aquaculture, production, primary and secondary metabolites including polysaccharides and polyphenols. He developed and taught graduate level courses in marine plant biochemistry and physiology (Biology and Oceanography) at Dalhousie University from 1964-2000. His research contributions have been recognized through numerous publications and awards including the Darbaker Award and Prize, National Research Council of Canada Industrial Partnership Award, the Marinalg International Honorary Certificate, Federal Partners in Technology Transfer Innovator of the Year Award, the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Award, the Bionova Nova Scotia Award of Excellence, and the Phycological Society of America Award of Excellence. He continues to conduct research and mentor staff at Acadian Seaplants Limited and the Institute for Marine Biosciences in Halifax.

Seaweed Stimuli in Plant Sciences and Agriculture

Both micro- and macroalgae have long been used to augment plant productivity and food production in various regions of the world through their beneficial effects when applied to soils. The interactions of algae with the soil community undoubtedly are complex and benefits are dependent on the crop and the local environmental conditions. This has resulted in much speculation as to mechanisms involved and the validity of the results reported. It is now just 60 years since the first commercial seaweed extract was manufactured for agricultural use. These aqueous extracts allowed for the first time the direct application of soluble seaweed constituents to specific plant organs such as leaves and roots. Advances made through improved analytical techniques and instrumentation coupled with the use of molecular genetic tools are establishing that seaweed extracts can modify plant and animal responses at a fundamental level. It therefore seems appropriate to examine key developments over the years and to remark on novel findings of the past two decades. The earlier concept that benefits of seaweeds and their extracts were due mainly to their manurial value or to their micronutrient suites is no longer tenable. A new and exciting vista has opened for seaweed extracts in both animal and plant applications.

Gurvan Michel’s research focuses on the identification and characterization of enzymes involved in the degradation and the biosynthesis of algal polysaccharides. He studied biology at the Institut National Agronomique Paris–Grigron and received his Engineer diploma in 1997. As a PhD student, he learned protein crystallography with Otto Dideberg at the Structural Biology Institute in Grenoble and obtained his doctorate in 2000. From 2001-2002, he was a research associate in Miroslaw Cygler’s group at the Biotechnology Research Institute in Montreal, Canada. Since 2003 he is a CNRS permanent scientist and has joined Bernard Kloareg’s group at the Station Biologique in Roscoff. With Mirjam Czjzek, he has participated to the development of a new protein crystallography group. His current strategy is to combine genomics approaches with structural methods to investigate the function of novel polysaccharidases from marine bacteria and algae. In collaboration with Rudolph Amann’s group (MPI Bremen, Germany) and the Genoscope, Gurvan Michel and Tristan Barbeyron have undertaken the genome project on the Flavobacterium Zobellia galactanivorans, a key marine polysaccharide degrader. He has also analyzed the carbohydrate metabolism in the genome of the model Brown Alga, Ectocarpus siliculosus.

Biodegradation and biosynthesis of algal polysaccharides: deciphering structural and functional information from complete genomes

Marine macroalgae synthesize a great diversity of polysaccharides, which are used as cell wall constituents and energy storage. Like land plants, these photosynthetic eukaryotes produce neutral polysaccharides such as cellulose and starch. However, seaweeds are characterized by their high contents of anionic polysaccharides and notably sulfated polysaccharides, which have no equivalent in land plants. Red algae produce sulfated galactans, agars and carrageenans, which are commercially used for their gelling properties, while the cell walls of brown algae contain alginates and sulfated fucans. However, the metabolism of algal polysaccharides remains an uncharted territory.

Significant advances have been obtained on marine bacteria that use algal polysaccharides as carbon sources. Those microorganisms degrade the cell walls of marine algae by secreting specific glycoside hydrolases (GH). Some marine bacterial enzymes define new specificities within known GH families, such as beta-agarases and kappa-carrageenases from the family GH16. The enzymes specific for algal polysaccharides mostly constitute new protein families such as family GH82 iota-carrageenases, family GH96 alpha-agarases and family GH107 fucanases. Crystallographic studies of several bacterial galactanases (figure 1) have established the molecular bases for recognition of agarose, kappa-carrageenan, and iota-carrageenan.

The study of algal carbohydrate metabolism is now revolutionized by access to complete genome sequence of seaweeds and associated marine bacteria and by medium-throughput protein expression approaches. First examples will be presented on the marine bacterium Zobellia galactanivorans [1] and on the brown alga Ectocarpus siliculosus [2]

1. Barbeyron T, L'Haridon S, Corre E, Kloareg B, Potin P: Zobellia galactanovorans gen. nov., sp. nov., a marine species of Flavobacteriaceae isolated from a red alga, and classification of. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 2001, 51:985-997.