Portugal.- The recent paper «Cyanobacterial diversity held in mBRCs as a promising biotechnological asset: the case study of the newly established LEGE Culture Collection», published in the Journal of Applied Phycology describes LEGE Culture Collection biodiversity and its applications as source of new natural products with biotechnological potential.
Based on LEGE Colection, a number of new compounds have already been isolated, such as portoamidas with allelopathic functions (microalgae growth inhibitor), patent-protected hierridina-C, with antimalarial activity and bartolosidas, chlorinated aromatic glycolipids. Compounds with antifouling activity for application in vessel paints or antibiofilm for catheter and prosthesis applications, are being investigated, revealing the enormous potential of such a collection.
The collection is currently been used for numerous biotechnological projects, with highlight at European level of NOMORFILM (Novel marine biomolecules antibiofilm, application to medical devices), EBB (European Marine Biological Resource Centre Bank), EMBRC (European Marine Biological Resource Center), CVMAR+I (Industrial marine biotechnological innovation through collaborations between companies and research), EnhanceMicroAlgae (High added-value industrial opportunities for microalgae in the Atlantic Area), Bluehuman (Blue biotechnology as a road for innovation human´s health), Cyanobesity (Cyanobacteria as a source of bioactive compounds with effects on obesity ),. At the national level it is involved at the reference projects INNOVMAR (Novel marine products with biotechnological applications) funded by the Program Norte2020, VALORMAR (Enhancing of technological innovation and new applications of marine resources), and ALGAVALOR (Microalgae integrated production and valorization of its various applications).
LEGE Culture Collection is registered in the World Federation of Culture Collections (WFCC-WDCM#1089) and is maintained by CIIMAR’s Blue Biotechnology and Ecotoxicology team, coordinated by Vitor Vasconcelos, Professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto and Director of CIIMAR, and is curated by Vitor Ramos, postdoctoral researcher at CIIMAR.
Reference (open):
Vitor Ramos, João Morais, Raquel Castelo-Branco, Ângela Pinheiro, Joana Martins, Ana Regueiras, Ana L. Pereira, Viviana R. Lopes, Bárbara Frazão, Dina Gomes, Cristiana Moreira, Maria Sofia Costa, Sébastien Brûle, Silvia Faustino, Rosário Martins, Martin Saker, Joana Osswald, Pedro N. Leão, Vitor M. Vasconcelos. 2018. Cyanobacterial diversity held in microbial biological resource centers as a biotechnological asset: the case study of the newly established LEGE culture collection. Journal of Applied Phycology, June 2018, Volume 30, Issue 3, pp 1437–1451. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10811-017-1369-y
Source: CIIMAR
