The loco is among the five finalists of the International Mollusc of the Year 2023 contest

On March 19, the voting to choose the “International Mollusk of the Year 2023” closed. On Wednesday, March 22, the winner of this annual competition will be announced.

Lorenzo Palma, Science in Chile.– The contest was launched in 2020 by the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research, the LOEWE Center for Translational Biodiversity Genomics (TBG) and the International Society for Mollusc Research (Unitas Malacologica), with the aim of raising awareness about the diversity of molluscs and the need to protect them. The species with the most votes will have its genetic information decoded.

After arthropods, molluscs are the second largest phylum of animals, with 85,000 described species that differ in size, shape, behavior, and preferred habitats. Most species live in water and reflect adaptations of a common boneless body plan: a head, a “foot” for locomotion, and a sac for intestines.

In this year’s competition there are five exciting species of molluscs to choose from: the thick-horned nudibranch (Hermissenda crassicornis), the wavy bubble snail (Micromelo undatus), the giant deep-sea oyster (Neopycnodonte zibrowii), the terrestrial leopard slug (Limax maximus) and the Chilean abalone (concholepas concholepas), which is marketed around the world as a delicacy.

Chilean specialist

Researcher María Inés Becker, president of the Fundación Ciencia y Tecnología para el Desarrollo, explains what this nomination means.

What does it mean for you as a researcher that the madman is among the candidates, as it is one of your main focuses of study?

This is great news, because the Loco, because it is edible, has been overexploited in Chile, running a serious risk of extinction; However, thanks to the protection policy that includes an extractive ban in the management areas available to fishermen, based on biological scientific background of various kinds that include their distribution, reproduction and growth, we will continue to have Locos, not only for eat, but because it is a great protein source in many ways, hemocyaninwhich circulates through your blood (hemolymph) carrying Oxygen and which is one of the largest known proteins.

Tell us about the Crazy Molluscum and immunology

Our research, with the support of FONDECYT projects and the creativity of numerous students who have completed their theses on topics related to hemocyanin, show that this protein, when inoculated in mammals, including humans, has positive non-specific immunomodulatory effects. , that is, the immune response against it enhances the immune response against other antigens, whether present in pathogens or in tumor cells. For this reason, Loco’s hemocyanin is used in Biotechnology and Biomedicine as a carrier protein to produce antibodies against very small substances and is also being evaluated as an adjuvant in a vaccine for melanoma immunotherapy by the team of researchers who direct the Drs. Flavio Salazar and Mercedes López from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile.

But the Fool is not only interested in hemocyanin, we have also discovered, with the support of CORFO projects and the COPEC-UC Foundation, that the Fool’s hemocytes, which are cells of the Fool’s immune system, possess antimicrobial peptides. These peptides interact with the bacterial membrane, producing pores that cause their lysis, or they enter the interior of the bacteria and inhibit its metabolism, destroying it. These peptides, once isolated and sequenced, due to their small size, can be chemically synthesized, in order to be used in various pharmaceutical and biotechnological applications. Thus, the Fool gives us the secrets of his antimicrobial peptides, but once revealed, we can use them without destroying the resource. In the case of hemocyanin and other mollusc hemocyanins, although their amino acid sequence is known, it has not been possible to produce them recombinantly, therefore, their obtaining depends on the natural resource. This has led to the fact that Loco’s hemocyanin is exported to the northern hemisphere by the company Biosonda SA, where it is being evaluated in preclinical studies in different vaccines.

Learn more about the research of Dr. María Inés Becker https://www.cienciaenchile.cl/el-medio-y-agencia-cienciaenchile-cl-publico-libro-donde-difunden-25-investigaciones-cientificas-recientes/

Contest information obtained at https://tbg.senckenberg.de/news-2/