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Use of Genetically Engineered Cyanobacteria in Therapeutics

Spirulina is a blue-green algae or cyanobacteria which is found in high-salt alkaline water, subtropical and tropical places such as America, Mexico, Asia, and Central Africa.  It’s asexual reproduction reduces the danger of gene escape into the food chain, as well as the accompanying food security and regulatory concerns. It contains a lot of macro and micronutrients, important amino acids, proteins, lipids, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. With these characteristics, photosynthetic cyanobacteria have been used in a variety of industries, including food, health, and pharmaceuticals. It is consumed mainly in central Africa and later NASA started using spirulina as a nutritional supplement for astronauts on space missions. It gained attention for therapeutic benefits like hypercholesterolemia, hyperglycerolemia, cardiovascular diseases, inflammatory diseases, allergies, cancer and viral infections. 

Spirulina, as a plant-based biopharmaceutical, has the potential to overcome the constraints and limits of existing crop-and algal-based platforms.

Modern biotechnology focuses on genetic engineering to domesticate cells as biological factories, which often comprises E.coli, yeasts, plant cells, and mammalian cells.The availability of methods for genetic manipulation of the organism is to achieve stable, high expression of exogenous proteins, as well as whether the organism possesses biological traits compatible with large-scale manufacturing and commercialization, are factors in deciding whether to switch to new expression platforms or not. Genetically engineered plants, on the other hand, have performance characteristics that were not deemed to be promising, such as poor growth rates, low product yields, and regulatory limitations. This prompted scientists to focus on something new: algae, which are an alternative to plants but are difficult to manipulate since exogenous protein production levels are low and often unstable. There hasn't been much research into the therapeutic usage of algae.

Spirulina has recently been genetically altered to produce high levels of therapeutic proteins such as single-chain antibodies, enzymes, signalling proteins, vaccine antigens, and bioactive peptides, as well as large-scale, indoor culture and downstream processing technologies. When encapsulated within dried spirulina, this targeted integration requires no purification prior to oral distribution, is stable without refrigeration, and is protected during stomach transit. Oral administration of a spirulina-expressed antibody that targets campylobacter, a gramme negative bacteria that causes diarrhoea in humans and is a leading cause of infant death in impoverished countries. This approach prevents disease in mice, and a phase 1 clinical trial showed that it is safe to use in humans.

The use of Cyanobacteria is useful to mankind, and it will soon be employed to heal ailments that cause mortality.

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