Forse non tutti sanno che esistono alcune piante ed insetti, abitanti di ambienti desertici, che hanno la capacità di essiccarsi completamente durante la stagione calda senza che le loro molecole biologiche subiscano danni. Infatti, as soon as the first rains fall and are rehydrated, these bodies (called criptobionti) are able to resume very soon, their life cycle. This ability to survive dehydration due to the presence of large quantities of an unusual sugar: trehalose, which allows them to survive in a "state of suspended animation" in the absence of water. The same thing happens Artemio Salina, a shrimp that live in very salty water and can survive without water due to the production of trehalose. This sugar also allows certain types of frogs to survive in virtually frozen.
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Ce lo spiega Mario De Rosa, ordinario di biochimica alla Seconda Università di Napoli e coordinatore del Centro regionale di competenza per le Applicazioni tecnologiche industriali di biomolecole e biosistemi, con ben ventisei brevetti nel proprio curriculum scientifico, la maggior parte dei quali riguardano le biotecnologie: ha lavorato soprattutto nel campo del farmaco brevettando in Usa sistemi che riguardano la stabilizzazione delle molecole, i sistemi di rilascio controllato ed i processi produttivi. La produzione di trealosio, o meglio i processi di produzione di questo zucchero, isolato per la prima volta proprio da quegli organismi che vivono nel deserto, costituisce parte degli ultimi brevetti depositati da De Rosa perchè This sugar can be used as a sweetener and as a preservative for dried and frozen products and can find many applications that are still being tested. "The sugar trehalose is a very important short-will spread in the market - said De Rosa - It appears a bit 'less sweet than sucrose but has important biological functions: it interacts with macromolecules, stabilizing and slowing the processes of degradation, trehalose is finding application as a stabilizer of enzymes, particularly in the food sector to maintain its nutritional value, tastes and smells of dried foods as this will mean that the volatiles do not go away: there are many patents filed in various stages of research in this regard. "For a long time, however, the very high cost of production of trehalose do not have permission to use a large scale until the Japanese, and the University of Naples in isolation, have invented a process convert the starch into trehalose by the use of two enzymes. Those Japanese are enzymes derived from mesophilic organisms (ie living at very low temperatures and are unstable), "our enzymes instead - said De Rosa - are isolated from a bacterium living in Solfatara at very high temperatures: this is the bacterium Sulfolobus solfataricus, a thermophilic bacterium that lives in hot water and sulfuric acid. "Researchers Neapolitans, quindi, isolato gli enzimi utili e li hanno fatti produrre ad un altro batterio.
"Abbiamo prelevato i geni che codificano questi enzimi e li abbiamo immessi in microrganismi che vivono a temperatura ambiente - precisa il professore - in tal modo per ottenere il downstream, ovvero la purificazione del batterio dagli enzimi che non servono, basta bollire il batterio stesso e ciò perchè gli enzimi utili sono attivi solo ad alta temperatura: il procedimento è industriale ma non costa niente ed il batterio intero, ormai morto, dopo il trattamento tecnico può essere usato come catalizzatore per trasformare l'amido in trealosio". Attualmente questo brevetto è in corso di valutazione industriale per l'enorme rilevanza che potrebbe rivestire. Le in fact, possible applications are endless, such as in the production of dried fruits and all the freeze-dried or dried hot: the addition of trehalose causes water to be added as soon as the product does not differ more than cool. In the food and confectionery then could have a major impact on the conservation and use of eggs, because the two components, egg white and yolk are normally sold separately and red you can not keep anything dry because of the properties of the red 'egg, with the addition of trehalose yolks can be dried and reused by adding water. The use of trehalose is also being evaluated in the field of panificazione perchè molto probabilmente può essere sfruttato per far indurire il pane più lentamente, per avere cioè pane fresco per una settimana, riuscendo quindi a farne una produzione industriale.
"Attulmente l'Università sta collaborando con l'azienda agricola Dolce Irpinia per l'applicazione del trealosio - racconta De Rosa - abbiamo sviluppato un processo per candire le castagne perchè gli zuccheri tradizionali reagiscono con le proteine e si imbruniscono e ciò è sinonimo di invecchiamento e degradazione. Il trealosio sostituisce questi zuccheri rendendo il prodotto migliore per due motivi: non imbrunisce ed è meno dolce. La società già is producing these candies. "You have to consider that the current industrial trehalose sugar costs three times the municipality or 4 or $ 5 per kilo but both glucose and trehalose are derived from starch and sugar also common, with this new production process Costs are likely to upheaval.
"In a public system that is evolving towards industry - said the professor - the patent culture is important and requires a skill acquired. Here we are trying to train young people who have the culture of the patent with the aim of developing a research activity that starts from the beginning with this logic. "This is a new way of thinking and research in the University's assets country: a vision in which the patent takes a node and the defense of the invention became one of the cornerstones of the growing relationship between the public research system and industrial activity. "Unfortunately - concludes De Rosa - Italy here in the patent literature does not have the rigor of the scientific" looks like sucrose. Sugar for the excellence unites even the same chemical formula, but there are structural differences that make it its strength. It is of trehalose, a sugar that has a capacity "bioprotettive and could one day be used, as well as in" food and cosmetics, to preserve stem cells, antibodies and vaccines. But
also be used to store the plasma in dust, so "for use on the battlefield in times of extreme emergency. Just as with the coffee " instantaneous, it is sufficient to add "water for healing, for example , wounded soldiers. This sugar, which is synthesized by a class of organisms, extremophiles, capable of withstanding a habitat deemed prohibitive for life, past and "won the prize international set" L "Hours" AL and the "UNESCO" For Women in Science "to a" Italian, Federica Migliardo, a researcher of 32 years.
Siciliana di Messina, Migliardo explains all "Adnkronos Health its commitment in the study of "a protocol that would allow the use of bio-trehalose as a preservative, or rather as a stabilizer
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