1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 JWST079-27 JWST079-Kim June 5, 2011 12:47 Printer Name: Yet to Come UNCORRECTED PROOFS 27 Current Trends and Future Prospects of Biotechnological Interventions Through Plant Tissue Culture in Seaweeds Abdul Bakrudeen Ali Ahmed and Rosna Mat Taha Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 27.1 Introduction Seaweed uses around the world include human foods, fer- tilizers, and the extraction of valuable products such as industrial gums and chemicals. Moreover, recent research has pointed to new opportunities, particularly in the field of medicine, associated with bioactive properties of molecules extracted from seaweeds. Seaweed may belong to one of several groups of multicellular algae: the red algae, green al- gae, and brown algae. As these three groups are not thought to have a common multicellular ancestor, the seaweeds are a polyphyletic group. In addition, some tuft-forming blue- green algae (cyanobacteria) are sometimes considered as sea weeds – “Seaweed” is a colloquial term and lacks a formal definition. There are several ways to cultivate seaweed: fragments of plants, sporelings or spore can be seeded onto robes or other substrates and grown to maturity in the wild. An alternative to ocean-growing is the cultivation of seaweed in artificial enclosures, such as tanks or ponds, where sea- weeds can be grown in high densities on otherwise low- value land. Both wild aquaculture and alternative grow- ing methods are likely to be important for the growth of the industry. The seaweed research program is focus- ing initially on the potentially valuable native red sea- weeds; however the skills and knowledge developed in the program will be readily transferable to a diversity of seaweeds. The fundamental knowledge of the seaweed life cycle and the processes that affect tissue culture has borne fruit in improved seaweed tissue culture methods. Development of seed source from valuable red native seaweeds has taken place. The seaweeds have been induced to release spores in the laboratory with subsequent growth of sporelings. This is an important step in seaweed mariculture for both on growing in the wild or laboratory-based seaweed cul- tivation. The development of techniques for the culture of isolated plant organs, tissues and cells have led to several ex- citing opportunities in the area of plant biotechnology, and allowed widespread use of cell culture for in vitro genetic manipulation, plant propagation and production of com- mercially useful products (Cocking, 1990). Following the success achieved by application of these techniques in higher plants, tissue culture of seaweeds was initiated as early as Handbook of Marine Macroalgae: Biotechnology and Applied Phycology, First Edition. Se-Kwon Kim. © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.