Researchers unlock secrets of jellyfish compound
Researchers at Nanjing University of Technology have unlocked the secrets of a compound found in jellyfish that could revolutionise a 100 billion yuan (HK$111 billion) market that includes everything from medicine and cosmetics to fertiliser.
The discovery could lead to the large-scale production of the compound known as polyglutamic acid (PGA), known for its remarkable ability to retain water.
Jellyfish are able to thrive in high-pressure, high-salinity ocean environments, without dehydrating, an ability made possible by a biological polymer inside their bodies called polyglutamic acid, or PGA.
PGA has excellent water solubility, strong absorption capacity, and is biodegradable. Those qualities make it a desirable potential ingredient in cosmetics and food items, where it can help lock in moisture.
In a time of growing global concerns about food insecurity, PGA can also act as a biofertiliser, improving crop yields while aiding in the slow release of fertilisers and water, according to the researchers.
But sourcing PGA from nature has been a challenge. Aside from jellyfish, the compound can only be found in natto, a traditional Japanese fermented food.
Technical hurdles, which also posed considerable challenges to industrial production, were eventually overcome by using microbial fermentation to produce and extract PGA, making large-scale, cost-effective production a reality, the researchers said.
“It took us a full decade to produce and extract polyglutamic acid in the laboratory using microbial fermentation,” said professor Xu Hong, the team’s lead scientist, in a report published by China Science Daily on Wednesday.
The work faced many obstacles. Experiments with traditional bacterial strains had resulted in low yields and the scientists were only able to collect a minimal amount of final product. The complex components in the final fermentation were also difficult to separate and purify, leading to slow industrial production.
After revealing the mechanisms that drove microbial metabolisms, Xu’s team pioneered a process to sequence the genome of the bacterial strains used for production.
The result was a new breeding technology to screen the most suitable strains. They also adopted a unique technique to extract high-purity PGA from fermentation products.
Xu’s team has since collaborated with Nanjing Shineking Biotech to establish the world’s first PGA production line with an annual capacity of 100,000 tonnes.
The product has found extensive applications in various fields including agriculture, cosmetics and food, and is being exported to Europe and Southeast Asia.
“Our polyglutamic acid product is 30 per cent more concentrated than international advanced products. The conversion rate of reactant substrates has more than doubled, and the amount of ethanol used in production has been significantly reduced,” Nanjing Shineking Biotech co-founder Feng Xiaohai said.
For her contributions, Xu Hong was awarded the National Innovation Award on May 30 by the China Association for Science and Technology in conjunction with the Ministry of Science and Technology.
More potential uses for PGA are being explored. Adding PGA to fertilisers, for example, can improve the utilisation of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Trials on crops such as rice, wheat, and corn as well as melons and tobacco have shown promising results.
Products produced by the team have been used by more than 100 large fertiliser and pesticide enterprises, giving a technological boost to the industry.