Methods of Isolating Chitin from Sponges (Porifera)

Cultivation-Independent Analysis of the Bacterial Community Associated With the Calcareous Sponge Clathrina clathrus and Isolation of Poriferisphaera corsica Gen. Nov., Sp. Nov., Belonging to the Barely Studied Class Phycisphaerae in the Phylum Planctomycetes

“…Approximately 5% of the over 8,000 known species of the phylum Porifera are calcareous sponges (class Calcarea ), which prefer shallow water and are often hidden in cave areas. Species of this class have a calcareous skeletal network (instead of a siliceous skeleton) and lack chitin ( Ruys, 2013 ; Żółtowska, 2019 ). With a special interest in the relevance of the bacterial phylum Planctomycetes , here we analyzed the bacterial community composition on the surface of the calcareous sponge Clathrina clathrus Schmidt, 1864, which has a yellow color, reaches sizes of up to 10 cm, and inhabits the Atlantic coast of Western Europe and coasts in the Mediterranean Sea ( Burton, 1963 ; Hooper and van Soest, 2002 ).…”

The Loss of Structural Integrity of 3D Chitin Scaffolds from Aplysina aerophoba Marine Demosponge after Treatment with LiOH

“…Dissolve chitin of all polymorphic forms; green solvents Elevated temperatures required [42,62] Solvents for dissolving chitin are often toxic or can cause hydrolysis, depolymerization, or structural degradation (see Table 1), so the challenge of developing a novel method for dissolving chitin remains important. Usually, chemical isolation of chitin scaffolds from corresponding marine sponges is based on an application of up to 10% concentrated NaOH, or Ba(OH) 2 (see for overview [8,63]). Any reports on the dissolution of such structures being located in these reagents during more than 12 months have been published to our best knowledge.…”

“…In contrast to cellulose, its distribution and isomorphism belong to uni- and multicellular organisms. This polysaccharide has been identified within various skeletal structures of unicellular and multicellular organisms [ 1 ], including fungi [ 2 ], protists [ 3 ], diatoms [ 4 ], sponges [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ], molluscs [ 9 , 10 ], arthropods [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ] and fish [ 16 ]. N-acetyl-D-glucosamine units linked by β-(1-4)-glycosidic bonds [ 17 ] are the principal molecular fingerprints found in three polymorphic forms of chitin—α, β and γ—which exhibit different arrangement of the polymeric chains [ 18 ].…”

“…One of the new and recently investigated sources of naturally pre-structured chitin are representatives of demosponges (class in the phylum Porifera). For example, selected demosponges of the order Verongiida possess the unique skeletons in the form of three-dimensional (3D) flat or cylindrical chitin scaffolds [ 8 ], which are characterized by their mechanical stability as well as their ability to swell due to capillary effects within their microtubular structures [ 18 ]. Together with structural rigidity, this makes chitinous scaffolds remarkable candidates especially for applications in tissue engineering and biomedicine [ 1 , 24 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ].…”

On the Mechanical Properties of Microfibre-Based 3D Chitinous Scaffolds from Selected Verongiida Sponges

“…Recently, systematic “express” methods [ 12 ] have been developed to isolate poriferan 3D scaffolds of chitin in less than an hour [ 13 , 14 , 15 ]. This has opened further investigations into the mechanical properties of these 3D scaffolds for potential exploitation in tissue engineering and technology.…”