Applications of Chitin and Chitosan will be of interest to industrial personnel involved in bio-processing as well as bio-engineering students, specialists in the bio-medical and bio-pharmaceutical industry, bio-chemists, food engineers, environmentalists, microbiologists and biologists who specialize in chitosan technology. Governmental Report

Chitin oligosaccharides, for example, are known to play an important role in plant disease resistance by "triggering" a plant's defense mechanisms against invasion by fungi (which have chitin in their cell walls). Also, symbiotic bacteria release chitin oligosaccharides to signal the formation of root nodules, sites for nitrogen-fixation in plants such as beans and clover. Chitin oligosaccharides may have potential use in human medicine as well. The costs of obtaining pure oligosaccharides that are suitable for research are so prohibitive. While bacteria produce the oligosaccharides with ease, thanks to their natural enzymes, replicating this process in the laboratory is environmentally problematic since those techniques require heavy use of acids and bases. The process is also time consuming and, as a consequence, very expensive. More than 30 years ago, chemical techniques has been developed for isolating saccharide compounds, a process that requires treatment after treatment to obtain high quality compounds. Those same techniques are still in commercial use today for manufacturing oligosaccharides from chitin. Pure oligosaccharides can cost from $5 to $15 a milligram - one small experiment can cost many thousands of dollars.

Chitin
• Chitin is the second most abundant polymer occurring in nature.
  
• Chitin could serve as replacements for bone, veins, cartilage, arteries, and tissue replacements in a wide variety of novel applications.
  
• Chitin/Chitosan is a basic building block of living tissues and the best source is crustacean shells such as shrimp.
  
• Major uses of chitin are the production of chitosan and glucosamine.
  

Chitin may be the most abundant natural compound in the sea with estimates of up to 10 million metric tons alone in tiny crustaceans called krill. However, scientists have not yet found a sufficient natural sink, an endpoint where all the chitin goes. Researchers may have solved part of a puzzle of the sea: where does all the chitin go--the substance that makes up all the shells of crabs, lobsters and shrimp and other crustaceans? At the International Marine Biotechnology Conference today, Cassandra M. Moe reported finding an enzyme in the gut of rainbow trout, Onchorynchus mykiss that degrades chitin. Moe, a graduate research assistant, and colleagues at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute's Center of Marine Biotechnology (COMB) have identified the chitinase in a wide range of vertebrate species of fish, birds, reptiles and mammals. It is the first gastric chitinase reported characterized in vertebrate animals, said Moe. In the COMB tests on vertebrate animals, rainbow trout, which feeds mostly on insects, showed the highest amounts of the chitinase in the gut, said Moe. But there is an odd twist to the story. Little of the chitin that passes through the trout gut actually gets digested. "Based on our findings, we think chitinase may be an ancient gastric enzyme that may be pathogenic, attacking fungi or bacteria, instead of being a digestive enzyme. It is not a product of the gut flora," said Moe. She added that scientists in The Netherlands have found chitinase in human macrophages, immunity cells in the blood, probably as a defense against microbial invaders. The COMB researchers have purified the chitinase from the gastric tissues of the rainbow trout. Moe said in the trout the enzyme may also act as "a food processor" to break chitin away from cuticles that hold skeletal tissues in place on the prey they eat. Chitin is also abundant in fungi, worms, spiders, insects and some algae. It is the second most common natural product on Earth after cellulose.