The Impacts Of Microbial Biotechnology

Abstract

Microorganisms are small creatures that cannot be seen without microscope. They multiple at an exponential rate and due to this reason they are widely used in different industries all around the world. In food industry they are used to increase food life and for giving aroma, characteristic smell to food items. In fermentation industry, yeast is used to ferment yoghurt, cheese and other milk products. In brewing industry, wine is made by using microorganisms. They are also used in medical fields also that help in curing particular type of disease. Bacillus circulans show much type of antimicrobial properties against E.coli and other bacteria of this kind. In removing of soil toxic Pseudomonas is used that can degrade alkanes and pesticides present in soil. Not microorganisms but their biosurfactants are also used against tumor cells and cancer cells because they attack on cancerous cells only and do not harm to other non-malignant cells. For removing textile water color Cyanobacteria and Candida albicans are used because they has the ability of removing dye from water by producing special types of enzymes that helps in degrading that particular dye. Mixture of microorganisms removes about 90% of dye from water than individual microbes. Marine microbes are also beneficial for human in curing disease. Trabectedin is obtained from symbiotic bacteria and is effective against cancer treatments. Besides these, biofilms produced by bacteria is harmful for human because they cause dental plague. Many microbes present on food causes the spoilage of food.

Introduction

Microorganisms

Microorganisms are defined as small organisms that cannot be seen through naked eye. Microscope is required for their vision. Group of microorganisms include fungi, bacteria, algae, protozoa, and viruses. These microbes lived in soil, water, and food. Most of microbes lived in human gut, small intestine and in large intestine. They can also lived in extreme hot places like in hot springs, glaciers, rocks, hydrothermal vents and in deep sea vents. There is enormous diversity of biochemical and metabolic traits are present in these microbes because they inhibit in different environments.

Microbial biotechnology

Biotechnology means the use of various living organisms and their products in different industrial process. While the term microbial biotechnology means that any application of technology that uses microbial organisms, their derivatives and microbiological systems to make different products also modify the processes for specific uses (Okafor, 2007). Microbial biotechnology sometime also called as industrial microbiology. This term (industrial microbiology) came into existence by establishment of alcoholic fermentation after that, the antibiotic production by microorganisms.

Today, microorganisms are widely used in different industries. In food industry they are widely used for making food best in taste and quality. They are also used as an agent for removing pollutants from different water bodies. Some of microorganisms and their used in various ways are described below.

Microorganisms in Fermentation Industry

Fermentation is ancient and widely used practice for the preservation of food. It is anaerobic process. This technique helps in increasing the shelf life of food. In some cases it reduces the toxicity of the food like in cassava fermentation production. Lactic acid helps in fermentation process. Most of the fermented food depends on lactic acid bacteria that can produce lactic acid from hexoses. Strain of pediococcus and lactococcus produce diacetyl. All these are the strain of bacteria called lactic acid bacteria (Jay, 1982). This diacetyl gives aroma and flavor to butter and other fermented products of milk.

The oldest fermented foods are breads. About 60% of population eats breads made from grains. Bread is formed by mixing Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeast) with flour, sugar and warm water. Yeast used sugar and its products as food. Saccharomyces spp. And Torulopsis are used for making sourdough breads. For these breads strains of Lb. brevis, Lb. fermentum and Lb. sanfrancisco are used for characteristics sensory qualities.

Yoghurt is product of fermented milk. First the milk is inoculated with Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus. At high temperature of 85oC-95oC milk is heated for 15-30 minutes so that unwanted microbes that are present in it may kill. After cooling lactic acid bacteria is added in milk that produce lactic acid by utilizing lactose sugar that present in milk. Lactose is fermented by S. thermophilus. But on the accumulation of acid its growth is suppressed. In high acidic conditions L. bulgaricus ferment the remaining lactose. Structure of milk protein is changes by lactic acid present in yoghurt and give a sharp taste to it. Acetaldehyde gives characteristics smell to yoghurt.

Biosurfactants of microorganisms in therapeutic applications

Biosurfactants are the active compounds that are synthesized by microorganisms on their surface. Microorganisms that produced biosurfactants are ubiquitous, environmental characterized. Microorganisms living in water and on land both produce these but biosurfactants obtained from marine microorganisms are medically important because marine microorganisms can produce biosurfactants with different structures.

Biosurfactant exhibits antimicrobial activities against many human pathogens. They form anti-biofilm and anti-adhesive properties that help them in reducing the colonization and adhesion of pathogenic microorganisms (Rodrigues et al., 2006). Bacillus circulans shows antimicrobial properties against Citrobacter freundaii, E.coli, Staphylococcus epidermidis and S.aureus (Das et al., 2009). Similarly, against C. albicans and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, biosurfactant of S. marcescens shows high inhibitory effect as compared to antimicrobial streptomycin and fluconazole (Dusane et al., 2011).

Biosurfactants in cancer treatment

Cancer is the major and increasing health risk that affects many lives of people in the world. Biosurfactants are used as anti-cancer agents that interfere with cancer proliferating process. They show low toxicity and easily biodegradability property that must be the features of ant-cancer agents. They cause the activation of T cells that are natural killer cells. They also induce apoptosis via death receptors in cancer cells, reduction of angiogenesis (Janek et al., 2013).

Surfactin is lipopeptide in nature. It is used against cancer cells. The polar heads of lipid membrane in cancer cells interacts with peptide moiety of surfactin. Because of the presence of long chain of fatty acid they penetrate into cancer cell membrane more efficiently (Liu et al., 2010). The lipopeptide somocystinamide A is a new biosurfactant that is obtained by Wrasidlo and collaborators from Lyngbya majusculla that is a cyanobacterium. It is toxic against many cancer cell like breast, prostate and lung. It also shows toxic nature against leukemia.

Microorganisms in removing soil pollutants

Soil is also called Pedosphere and is a natural body. It includes various minerals, gases, organic matters, and many organisms. These organisms help in supporting the life on earth. Due to rapid and more manufacturing of different industries, soil is damaging and becoming impropriate for the crops to grow. Many compounds that are either organic or inorganic in nature can destroy the fertility of soil. Chromium, zinc and tin are heavy metals and basic source of soil pollutants.

Bioremediation

The method by which the microorganisms such as fungus, yeast or bacteria are used to tidy up the environmental pollution, particularly soil contaminants. This technique helps in enhancing the growth and the development of specific microbes that are able to perform their specific activities at contaminated sites. These microorganisms use the contaminants as nutrients. They metabolize the organic matter into non organic and obtain their energy.

Microbial bioremediation

Individual microorganisms can’t mineralize the most of hazards compounds. Therefore, consortium of microorganisms is used for degradation process due to having opposite and co-metabolism activities. Microbes can survive in high acidic, toxic and alkaline conditions. Microorganisms have the ability of reducing the active form of toxic metal to inactive form. The aerobic bacteria are known for their ability of degradation. It has been reported that Pseudomonas, Sphingomonas, Mycobacterium and Rhodococcus has the ability of degrading the alkane’s, pesticides and polyaromatic compounds. Most of bacteria move and by moving towards contaminant show chemotactic response (Pal et al., 2010).

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Anaerobic bacteria are also used for dechlorination of chloroform and trichloroethylene. For the removal of polychlorinated biphenyls these bacteria used. Phanaerochaete chrysosporium is a type of white rot fungus that has the ability to degrade environmental pollutants in wide range. Boopathy and Kulpa (1994) demonstrated that the biodegradation of 2,4,6- Trinitrotoluene that are toxic pollutants are degraded by Methanococcus sp.

Bioremediation by biosorption process

Biosorption is a process in which biosorbent has high affinity towards metal ions and is continues until equilibrium established between metal ion and biosorbent (Das et al., 2008). For the removal of Cd (II) and Zn (II) Saccharomyces cerevisias used as a biosorbent that uses the mechanisms of ion exchange (Chen & Wang, 2007; Talos et al., 2009). For the biodegradation of Pb (II) that is contaminant of soil via biosorption Cephalosporium aphidicola and Aspergillus parasitica are used (Tunali et al., 2006; Akar et al., 2007). It has been demonstrated that Hymenoscyphus ericae, and Neocosmospora vasinfecta are used to convert toxic form of Hg (II) to nontoxic form because these are Hg resistant fungi. Microbes remove hydrophobic contaminants either by secreting bio surfactants or by direct cell- contaminant associations.

Removal of heavy metals

Microorganisms utilized molecular mechanisms in the removal of heavy metals that are toxic in nature. Deinococcus geothermalis is a genetically engineered bacterium and due to expression of mer operon it can degrade Hg+2. This expression comes from E.coli at high temperature (Brim et al., 2003). If Pseudomonas strain is modified by the plasmid of pMR68, having novel genes will help in making this strain of Pseudomonas resistive to mercury (Sone et al., 2013). By altering oxidation state many microorganisms degrade metals.by doing this their solubility also changed. It has been noted that species of Geobaccter can reduce the soluble form of Uranium (U6+) to Uranium (U4+) that is insoluble form (Lovley et al., 1991).

Microorganisms in textile water treatment

Dyeing industries of textile consume large amount of water and returned this water in form of wastewater to the environment (Andleeb et al., 2010). This wastewater contains large amount of synthetic dyes. Azo dye is the biggest class of synthetic dye that mostly used in the industries of textile. The discharge of different dyes is harmful to environment. Some dyes are cancer causing and mutagenic to humans. In many countries, textile wastewater is used to irrigate crops and this water contains azo dyes. This type of water bodies alters the enzyme activities, also changes the composition of soil that contain many communities of microbes (Topac et al., 2009).

Biotechnologies for colored water bodies

Many types of physical chemical methods are used to treat wastewater that contains dye. But these methods are expensive and are of cost. Therefore, microorganisms are used because they can multiply further when growing on the molecules of dyes. Microorganisms can also produce many enzymes that help in decolorization of dye from wastewater bodies.

Pure microbial cultures for removing color

Strains of algae, yeast, bacteria and fungi have been used to decolorize raw textile wastewater due to having advance characteristics. Candida tropicalis can remove color, metal ions, organic and inorganic compounds from the wastewater (Charumathi & Das, 2012). Cyanobacteria have been tested for decolorization of textile water and textile effluents (Ali et al., 2011; Henciya et al., 2013).

Culture of fungi

Strains of fungi are used to remove dye contaminants from wastewater bodies. White rot fungus is able to degrade the xenobiotic compounds from wastewater (Spadaro et al., 1992; Wesenberg et al., 2003). White rot fungus Ganoderma sp. En3 removes more than 90 % color. It has demonstrated that Irpexlacteus has the potential of removing 93 % color from textile effluents (Shin, 2004; Zhuo et al., 2011). Aspergillus fumigatus XC6 and Aspergillus niger are able to degrade azo dye. It has been demonstrated that Citrobacter sp. strain KCTC 18061P causes the rapid decolorization of dye from wastewater (Assadi & Jahangiri, 2001; Kaushik & Malik, 2010).

Culture of Bacteria

A large number of bacterial strains are also used for decolorization. Pseudomonas sp. SU-EBT, Bacillus HB4, Kurthia sp. and Bacillus Mk-8 are used because they can remove textile dyes efficiently under specific conditions. Bacillus sp. VUS (Dawkar et al., 2008) can remove color within 12 h from effluents of textile. Pseudomonas sp. SU-EBT produces an enzyme called laccase that is involved in decolorization because in the presence of dye called Congo red dye, its activity increases (Telke et al., 2010). Cunninghamella elegans are the sorbent against many heavy metals that are present in textile wastewater bodies.

Mixed culture of microbes in removing dye

Heterogeneous cultures of microbes are used for decolorizing raw colored wastewater. Pure cultures of bacteria and fungi can remove dye but mixed culture is more preferable due to synergic metabolic activities. Pseudomonas desmolyticum NCIM 2112, Bacillus odysseyi SUK3 and Sphingobacterium sp. ATM causes rapid decolorization as compared to their pure cultures (Tamboli et al., 2010). Similarly, sludge is used to remove dye from effluents because it is a rich source of different types of microbes. The combined applications of Micrococcus glutamicus NCIM-2168 and Proteus vulgaris NCIM-2027 has the potential of removing colors from the effluents of industries (Saratale et al., 2010). For the removal of textile wastewater and chemical oxygen demand (COD), the mixed population of methanogenic bacteria was tested.

Marine microorganisms in drug industry

The most important component of microbiology is the development of drug (Qadir & Malik, 2011). Sea and ocean covers about 70% or more of the world and it is major habitat of many organisms. That’s why marine microorganisms are the prime importance of many researchers, industries and of scientist. Aquatic environment contain many microorganisms that can generate bioactives which are biologically active complexes. Nearly about 10% of bioactives are of microbial origin. It has been studied that 87% of human disease are cured by using natural foodstuffs and correlated drugs.

Marine bacteria can produce the metabolites of antimicrobes. The first antibiotic was produced by using marine bacteria in 1996 (Ocio et al., 2009). Marine bacteria can also produce great percentage of antibiotics than other marine organisms because bacteria can form biofilms. Antibiotic agrochelin is obtained from Agro bacterium pelagiomicins. Similarly, pyrones obtained from Pseudomonas, sesbanimides and lolatins from Bacillus. Symbiotic bacteria produce Trabectedin that is approved for the treatment of cancer.

Sorbicillacton A is obtained from fungus that associates with marine sponge and is used in medical treatments. Marine fungi can produce antioxidant compounds. For example, Xanthene obtained from Wardomyees animalus and 4,5,6-Trihydroxy Methyphthadline from Epiomeeum species. All such types of antioxidants help in keeping away from cancer, dementia and atherosclerosis disease. Beside this they also used as therapeutics, medicines and food additives (Peng et al., 2010). Marine Actinomycetes are a source of anticancer agents because they target the function of proteasomes.

For the initiation of death in the cells of acute myeloid leukemia, marine cyanobacteria are used because the strains of these bacteria contain the activity of apoptosis against leukemia cells. They also don’t harm cardio myoblasts and hepatocytes that are non malignant cells. It has been observed that about 41 strains of these bacteria can cause the death of cancerous cell (Bachvaroff et al., 2008).

Biofuels from microorganisms

For transportation, more than 27% of energy that is primary form is used. For future transportation, hydrogen is used as an ideal fuel because hydrogen has the ability of converting electrical energy to mechanical energy. This process does not produce carbon dioxide (Malhotra, 2007). From biomass it is possible the production of biological hydrogen. This hydrogen is pollution free and provides an alternate to energy savings. Bio-photolysis of water by cyanobacteria can produce hydrogen. It can also be produced by photosynthetic bacteria. Thermophile microorganisms like Thermotoga elfii and Caldicellulosiruptor saccharolyticus can produce high amount of hydrogen (Claassen et al., 2004).

Conclusion

In nutshell, microorganisms play a vital role in our lives. They are present everywhere. They are used in various industries for various purposes. Most of microorganisms are used in removing environmental pollutions. Similarly, many other benefits are provided to us by these microorganisms. Beside all these, many microorganisms are harmful to humans. If the microorganisms start to grow together they for a slippery colony commonly known as biofilm this biofilm may cause dental plague to human if they form in mouth. Similarly, biofilms are also formed in water bodies due to which all the minerals present in water are used by these biofilms and efficiency, purity of water decreased and it become no longer available for drinking purpose.