Jini Jimmy

Pyocyanin as the drug of choice in aquaculture:Synthetic biology based production, down stream process and product design

Pyocyanin ,one of the phenazine derivatives has broad sprectum activity against bacteria and fungi (Kavitha et al;2005, Arun kumar et al,1997).It has been identified as the key molecule produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa and inhibits growth of pathogenic Vibrios in aquaculture systems (Preetha et al;2010 ,Priyaja et al ;2014).Pyocyanin has been found to be biodegradable by organisms leaving less or no residue (Yang et al; 2007).These facts imply that Pyocyanin can be used as a component of probiotic preparations for sustainable aquaculture. Pyocyanin being a costly compound, a commercially viable pyocyanin has to be produced in a cost effective manner.
Synthetic biological approaches can be applied to create a’ biopart’ to enhance the production of pyocyanin. This biopart which is created through genome editing can result in the over expression of pyocyanin gene in a chassis such as E.coli to create microbial cell factory. Pyocyanin produced by microbial cell factories can be obtained and purified from broth cultures through downstream processing. Crystallised pyocyanin can be used as a potential drug in aquaculture systems after optimisation