Recent Patents on Biotechnology - Volume 4, Issue 1, 2010

The reconstruction of hard and soft tissues is a major challenge in regenerative medicine, since diseases or traumas are causing increasing numbers of tissue defects due to the aging of the population. Modern tissue engineering is increasingly using three-dimensional structured biomaterials in combination with stem cells as cell source, since mature cells are often not available in sufficient amounts or quality. Biomaterial scaffolds are developed that not only serve as cell carriers providing mechanical support, but actively influence cellular responses including cell attachment and proliferation. Chemical modifications such as the incorporation of chemotactic factors or cell adhesion molecules are examined for their ability to enhance tissue development successfully. E.g. growth factors have been investigated extensively as substances able to support cell growth, differentiation and angiogenesis. Thus, continuously new patents and studies are published, which are investigating the advantages and disadvantages of different biomaterials or cell types for the regeneration of specific tissues. This review focuses on biomaterials, including natural and synthetic polymers, ceramics and corresponding composites used as scaffold materials to support cell proliferation and differentiation for hard and soft tissues regeneration. In addition, the local delivery of drugs by scaffold biomaterials is discussed.

Extracellular production of heterologous proteins using the Escherichia coli cell factory offers several advantages over intracellular production and mammalian culture. Properly folded proteins can be rapidly accumulated in the culture media, and downstream processes for isolation and purification can be much simplified. Efforts to enhance the secretory production of target proteins can be largely classified as selection and modification of the signal peptide, coexpression of proteins to assist translocation and folding, improvement of periplasmic release, and protection of target proteins from degradation and contamination. Here, we review recent patents on the secretory production of recombinant proteins in E. coli.

Carbohydrates are important molecules in various technological fields. The regio- and stereoselective synthesis of oligosaccharides for food and pharmaceutical molecular design and the selective glycosylation of peptides, proteins and drugs, as well as the selective hydrolysis of natural abundant saccharidic materials affording low molecular weight highvalue- added products, can be all considered significant aspects. Advance in the chemical synthesis of glycosidic bond represents one of the most successful topic in organic synthetic chemistry in the last half century for the intrinsic difficulties chemists have to face dealing with carbohydrates: yields and selectivtiy. Biocatalytic strategies selected for high-yield and stereospecific construction of glycosidic bonds are based principally on the action of two classes of enzymes, namely glycoside hydrolases (endo- and exo-glycosidases) and glycosyltransferases although only enzymes of the second class are devoted to synthetic action in nature. Reviewing patents on the preparation of glycosides is hard to manage, here a five years time frame for this review is set, considering it a suitable compromise in terms of amount of innovation and numbers of patents to analyze. Interest of researchers for the natural sources of biocatalysts, with particular emphasis on modified enzymes and lists of the most innovative patents in cosmetic, fine chemicals and food fields will be commented. Biomolecular asset of selected patents related to glycosides will be expressly considered. Large number of enzymes will be required in future in order to realize more sustainable new enzymatic processes to answer human needs.

The indiscriminate use of synthetic pesticides has brought undesired problems to human health, agriculture, and the environment. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and Biological Control (BC) programs, which are based on minimum use of pesticides, are seen as alternative, more ecological solutions to the unintended problems associated with pesticide use. These programs combine the introduction, augmentation, and/or conservation of pest natural enemies, with other protection tools. Although patents and the process of commercialization of microorganisms has been the subject of various reviews, macroorganisms used for pest and disease control have stimulated less comprehensive analyses. From our review of patents, there has been an enormous increase in the number of macroorganism-related patents registered in the last two decades. Private companies own 65% of all these patents. Rearing methods and crop protection strategies are the main intellectual property patented, with parasitoid wasps and predatory mites being the primary Biological Control Agent (BCA) focus of patents. Among countries, Japan was the first country with these types of patents, followed by the United States, Canada and China. Increasing concern for pesticide risks by governments and the public is seen as the main impetus for change in “traditional” crop protection practices and for investment in other more ecological products like BCAs.

Effluent standards have become more and more stringent due to an increase in awareness about environmental impacts on both continuous and intermittent polluting discharge. For that, a high efficient waste water treatment plants are needed to be designed. Membrane bioreactor (MBR) can be good solution to cope with such issues. MBR systems respects the conventional activated sludge process which use microorganisms for degradation of organic pollutants and requires aeration as well as reduced foot print and sludge production through maintaining a high biomass concentration in the bio reactor. The present work elucidates the recent patents and critically reviews the advancement in MBR process, which can be helpful to designer. It was found that the behavior of aeration device, mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS) concentration, flux enhancer and handling of sludge plays an important role in the performance of MBR process.

Endophytes are microorganisms that live within host plants for at least part of their life and do not cause apparent symptoms of diseases. In general, beneficial endophytes promote host plant growth, increase plant nutrient uptake, inhibit plant pathogen growth, reduce disease severity, and enhance tolerance to environmental stresses. As sustainable and renewable agricultural production (including current biofuel and bioenergy crops) increases in prominence, endophytic microorganisms will play important roles and offer environmentally-friendly methods to increase productivity while reducing chemical inputs. This review discusses various aspects of beneficial fungal and bacterial endophyte interactions with plants, including the physiological and molecular mechansims by which they benefit plant performance. We also discuss the potential for genetic modification of endophytes with useful genes, which could be used to impart additional traits following inoculation with the genetically engineered endophytes. Finally, we review US-issued patents over the past decade which relate to the use of fungal and bacterial endophytes for plant growth and stress tolerance improvement.

The patents annotated in this section have been selected from various patent data bases. These recent patents are relevant to the articles published in this journal issue, categorized by different biotechnology methods, process and techniques involved.