Humble Horseshoe Crab Belies Its Life-Saving Properties
UNH Professor and Students Breeding Declining Species and Crucial Biomedical Resource in Captivity for the First Time
West Haven, Conn., June 30, 2009-Anyone who has ever taken a pill, been tested for meningitis or had any sort of medical device implanted should probably thank the humble horseshoe crab for making it possible, according to Carmela Cuomo, Ph.D., associate professor and coordinator of the Marine Biology Program at the University of New Haven (UNH). The 400-million year-old invertebrate is well known for its presence on beaches around the globe, but less recognized for the bacteria-identifying compound contained in one of the species' bright-blue blood-limulus amoebacyte lysate (LAL)-which is in great demand by the biomedical and pharmaceutical industries.
Cuomo points out that the escalating need for LAL, which is used to identify the presence of bacteria and sells for $15,000 per quart, is one of the reasons why the Atlantic horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) species is particularly worth saving from decline. After 10 years of research, Cuomo has developed the first protocols to successfully breed the Atlantic species in captivity, a feat that could prove a boon to the biomedical field and help protect the disc-shaped creature from extinction.
Cuomo and UNH student research assistants, Katie Oren '10, and Samantha Davidson '10, are collecting thousands of tiny, green-grey eggs from the pairs of mating Limulus that the UNH team is sheltering in tanks at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Marine Fisheries Service Lab in Milford, Conn. Beyond the researchers' jokes about encouraging the horseshoe crabs' production with soft music and candlelight, serious science is taking place. The newly spawned eggs are brought to the UNH marine biology lab for hatching. By August, the tiny larval crabs will be housed at The Sound School Regional Vocational Aquaculture Center in New Haven. "This is full-blown aquaculture," notes Cuomo. "We will be testing different diets, and, if we can develop protocols to grow them on a larger scale, Limulus could offer tremendous job potential in Connecticut."
Researchers have been trying to synthesize LAL in the lab for 40 years, and have yet to produce it. In the meantime, Cuomo says, biomedical researchers are investigating possible anti-AIDS and anti-cancer properties in LAL, raising the stakes, and possibly the demand, even higher for Limulus polyphemus.
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