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Discolored Red Seaweed Pyropia yezoensis with Low Commercial Value Is a Novel Resource for Production of Agar Polysaccharides

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Abstract

The red seaweed Pyropia yezoensis has been demonstrated to be a novel resource for the production of high-quality agar. P. yezoensis is grown for the food industry in large-scale Japanese mariculture operations. However, discolored P. yezoensis is mostly discarded as an industrial waste, although it has some kind of utility values. Here, we evaluated the utility of discolored P. yezoensis as a resource for agar production. The quality of agar from the discolored seaweed was comparable to that from normal seaweed. In addition, as a distinguishing characteristic, agar yield was higher from discolored seaweeds than from normal types. Moreover, we successfully used agar from discolored P. yezoensis for bacterial plate media and DNA electrophoresis gels without agarose purification. Thus, our results demonstrate that discolored P. yezoensis is suitable for agar production and use in life science research. Diverting discolored P. yezoensis from disposal to agar production provides a solution to the current industrial waste problem in mariculture, as well as a secure source of agar for research purposes.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Haruhiko Terasawa and Chyoichi Hosi of the Shichigahama branch office of the Miyagi Prefecture Fisheries Cooperative Association for kindly providing discolored and normal seaweed materials, respectively. We thank the Agar Division of SSK Sales Co., Ltd. for kindly supplying agar from dried Gelidium sp. We also acknowledge Mai Kano and Sachiko Goto of the Suzuyo Research Institute for their technical support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University, 3-1-1 Minato-cho, Hakodate, 041-8611, Japan

    Keiji Sasuga

  2. Suzuyo Research Institute, Co. Ltd., 11-26 Tsukiji-cho, Shimizu, Shizuoka, 424-0944, Japan

    Keiji Sasuga, Tomoya Yamanashi & Shigeru Nakayama

  3. Miyagi Prefecture Fisheries Cooperative Association, 1-27 Kaisei, Ishinomaki, 986-0032, Japan

    Syuetsu Ono

  4. Faculty of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University, 3-1-1 Minato-cho, Hakodate, 041-8611, Japan

    Koji Mikami

  5. College of Fisheries and Life Science, Shanghai Ocean University, 999 Huchenghuan Road, Lingang New City, Pudong District, Shanghai, 201306, China

    Koji Mikami

Authors
  1. Keiji Sasuga
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  2. Tomoya Yamanashi
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  3. Shigeru Nakayama
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  4. Syuetsu Ono
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  5. Koji Mikami
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Koji Mikami.

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Electronic supplementary material

Fig. S1

Seaweed samples used in the present study. Dry nori and nori sheets were from Shichigahama. (GIF 189 kb)

High resolution image (TIFF 184 kb)

Fig. S2

Relationships between agar yield and color parameters of nori sheets produced at different periods. Upper, correlation between agar yield and a* value; lower, correlation between agar yield and b* value. (GIF 78 kb)

High resolution image (TIFF 24 kb)

Fig. S3

Comparison of the size of halos produced by B. subtilis on skim milk plates made with agar from Gelidium sp. (a), normal dry nori (b), normal nori sheets (c), discolored dry nori (d), and discolored nori sheets (e). (GIF 275 kb)

High resolution image (TIFF 335 kb)

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Sasuga, K., Yamanashi, T., Nakayama, S. et al. Discolored Red Seaweed Pyropia yezoensis with Low Commercial Value Is a Novel Resource for Production of Agar Polysaccharides. Mar Biotechnol 20, 520–530 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10126-018-9823-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10126-018-9823-7

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