The present review highlights the chitin/chitosan as biopolymers that are promising for biomedical research development. Our goal was to assess the potential for practical use of these biopolymers and to summarize information on traditional and innovative technologies for their production and purification. The widespread occurrence of chitin and chitosan in nature as well as the unique chemical and biological properties of chitosan are reasons of growing interest in the use of the latter in several pharmaceutical fields. The main stages of chitin extraction and its further modification into chitosan are deproteinization, demineralization, deacetylation, and the main methods of chitosan purification are filtration, dialysis and reprecipitation. The profitability of the production of chitin/chitosan from crustaceans and edible mushrooms is approximately at the same level. The cost of mushroom products can be reduced by using agricultural or forestry waste as nutrient substrates. This makes the use of fungi as sources of chitin/chitosan in forested regions a rather promising issue.

Microplastics (MPs) pollution has wreaked havoc on biodiversity and food safety globally. The false ingestion of MPs causes harmful effects on organisms, resulting in a decline in biodiversity. The present review comprehended the current knowledge of MP contamination in Crustacea and Mollusca from 75 peer-reviewed articles published in Asia between 2015 and 2023. A total of 79 species (27 Crustacea and 52 Mollusca) have been recorded to be contaminated with MPs. Out of the total 27 species of Crustacea, Metopograpsus quadridentatus (327.56 MPs/individual) and Balanus albicostatus (0.42 MPs/individual) showed the highest and lowest contamination, respectively. Out of the total 52 species of Mollusca, Dolabella auricularia (2325 MPs/individual) and Crassostrea gigas and Mytilus edulis (0.2 MPs/individual) showed the highest and lowest contamination, respectively. In terms of country-wise MP contamination, China has the highest number of contaminated species in both phylums among Asia. Findings of pollution indices revealed a very high risk of MP contamination in all the countries. Fiber was reported predominantly in both groups. Blue and black-colored MPs having <500 μm and <500 μm-1 mm size were found dominantly in Crustacea and Mollusca, respectively. Polypropylene was recorded as the dominant plastic polymer in both Crustacea and Mollusca. In essence, this review has provided a comprehensive insight into MP concentration in Crustacea and Mollusca of Asia, highlighting variations among species and geographic locations. This understanding is crucial for tackling urgent environmental challenges, safeguarding human health, and promoting global sustainability initiatives amid the escalating issue of plastic pollution. PRACTITIONER POINTS: Microplastic pollution has created havoc on biodiversity and food safety. A total of 27 and 52 species of crustaceans and Mollusca have been recorded to be contaminated with MPs. Metopograpsus quadridentate and Dolabella auricularia have shown higher MPs contamination. Polypropylene was recorded as the dominant plastic polymer in both crustacean and Mollusca. Findings of pollution indices revealed a very high risk of MP contamination in all the countries.

Background: Seafood allergy is a significant global health concern that greatly impacts a patient\'s quality of life. The intervention efficacy of oral immunotherapy (OIT), an emerging intervention strategy, for seafood allergy remains controversial. This study aimed to perform a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the efficacy of slightly processed allergen/meat from fish and crustacea in OIT, both in mouse models and clinical patients. Methods: A comprehensive literature search was performed in four mainstream databases and the EBSCOhost database to identify all relevant case-control and cohort studies. The aim was to elucidate the intervention efficacy, encompassing various processing methods and assessing the efficacy of multiple major allergens in OIT. Results: The meta-analysis included five case-control studies on crustacean allergens in mouse models and 11 cohort studies on meat from fish and crustacea in clinical patients for final quantitative assessments. In mouse models, crustacean allergen substantially decreased the anaphylactic score after OIT treatment (mean difference (MD) = -1.30, p < 0.01). Subgroup analyses with low-level heterogeneities provided more reliable results for crab species (MD = -0.63, p < 0.01, I2 = 0), arginine kinase allergen (MD = -0.83, p < 0.01, I2 = 0), and Maillard reaction processing method (MD = -0.65, p < 0.01, I2 = 29%), respectively. In clinical patients, the main meta-analysis showed that the slightly processed meat significantly increased the incidence rate of oral tolerance (OT, incidence rate ratio (IRR) = 2.90, p < 0.01). Subgroup analyses for fish meat (IRR = 2.79, p < 0.01) and a simple cooking treatment (IRR = 2.36, p = 0.01) also demonstrated a substantial increase in the incidence rate of OT. Sensitivity and meta-regression analyses successfully identified specific studies contributing to heterogeneity in mouse models and clinical patients, although these studies did not impact the overall significant pooled effects. Conclusions: This meta-analysis provides preliminary evidence for the high intervention efficacy of slightly processed allergen/meat from fish and crustacea in OIT, both in mouse models and clinical patients. The Maillard reaction and cooking processing methods may emerge as potentially effective approaches to treating allergen/meat in OIT for clinical patients, offering a promising and specific treatment strategy for seafood allergy. However, these findings should be interpreted cautiously, and further supporting evidence is necessary.

Probiotics in shrimp aquaculture have gained considerable attention as a potential solution to enhance production efficiency, disease management, and overall sustainability. Probiotics, beneficial microorganisms, have shown promising effects when administered to shrimp as dietary supplements or water additives. Their inclusion has been linked to improved gut health, nutrient absorption, and disease resistance in shrimp. Probiotics also play a crucial role in maintaining a balanced microbial community within the shrimp pond environment, enhancing water quality and reducing pathogen prevalence. This article briefly summarizes the many ways that probiotics are used in shrimp farming and the advantages that come with them. Despite the promising results, challenges such as strain selection, dosage optimization, and environmental conditions are carefully addressed for successful probiotic integration in shrimp aquaculture. The potential of probiotics as a sustainable and ecologically friendly method of promoting shrimp development and health while advancing environmentally friendly shrimp farming techniques is highlighted in this analysis. Further research is required to fully exploit probiotics\' benefits and develop practical guidelines for their effective implementation in shrimp aquaculture.

The unscientific disposal of the most abundant crustacean wastes, especially those derived from marine sources, affects both the economy and the environment. Strategic waste collection and management is the need of the hour. Sustainable valorization approaches have played a crucial role in solving those issues as well as generating wealth from waste. The shellfishery wastes are rich in valuable bioactive compounds such as chitin, chitosan, minerals, carotenoids, lipids, and other amino acid derivatives. These value-added components possessed pleiotropic applications in different sectors viz., food, nutraceutical, cosmeceutical, agro-industrial, healthcare, and pharmaceutical sectors. The manuscript covers the recent status, scope of shellfishery management, and different bioactive compounds obtained from crustacean wastes. In addition, both sustainable and conventional routes of valorization approaches were discussed with their merits and demerits along with their combinations. The utilization of nano and microtechnology was also included in the discussion, as they have become prominent research areas in recent years. More importantly, the future perspectives of crustacean waste management and other potential valorization approaches that can be implemented on a large scale.

For several decades, researchers have been using protein-fragment complementation assay (PCA) approaches for biosensing to study protein-protein interaction for a variety of aims, including viral infection, cellular apoptosis, G protein coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling, drug and substrate screening, and protein aggregation and protein editing by CRISPR/Cas9. As a reporter, NanoLuc (NLuc), a smaller and the brightest engineered luciferase derived from deep-sea shrimp Oplophorus gracilirostris, has been found to have many benefits over other luminescent enzymes in PCA. Inspired by the split green fluorescent protein (GFP) and its β-barrel structure, two split NLuc consisting of peptide fragments have been reported including the binary and ternary NLuc systems. NanoBiT® (large fragment + peptide) has been used extensively. In contrast, tripart split NLuc (large fragment + 2 peptides) has been applied and hardly used, while it has some advantages over NanoBiT in some studies. Nevertheless, tripart NLuc has some drawbacks and challenges to overcome but has several potential characteristics to become a multifunctional and powerful tool. In this review, several aspects of tripart NLuc are studied and a brief comparison with NanoBiT® is given.

Mysids have a high ecological importance, particularly by their role in marine food chains as a link between the benthic and pelagic realms. Here we describe the relevant taxonomy, ecological aspects such as distribution and production, and their potential as ideal test organisms for environmental research. We also highlight their importance in estuarine communities, trophic webs, and their life history, while demonstrating their potential in addressing emergent problems. This review emphasizes the importance of mysids in understanding the impacts of climate change and their role in the ecology of estuarine communities. Although there is a dearth of research in genomic studies, this review emphasizes the relevance of mysids and their potential as a model organism in environmental assessment studies of prospective or retrospective nature and highlights the need for further research to enhance our understanding of this group\'s ecological significance.

This review provides a report on the properties and recent advances in the application of chitosan and chitosan-based materials in cosmetics. Chitosan is a polysaccharide that can be obtained from chitin via the deacetylation process. Chitin most commonly is extracted from cell walls in fungi and the exoskeletons of arthropods, such as crustaceans and insects. Chitosan has attracted significant academic interest, as well as the attention of the cosmetic industry, due to its interesting properties, which include being a natural humectant and moisturizer for the skin and a rheology modifier. This review paper covers the structure of chitosan, the sources of chitosan used in the cosmetic industry, and the role played by this polysaccharide in cosmetics. Future aspects regarding applications of chitosan-based materials in cosmetics are also mentioned.

There are two viable options to produce shrimp shells as by-product waste, either within the shrimp production phases or when the shrimp are peeled before cooking by the end user. This waste is considered a double-edged sword, as it is possible to be either a source of environmental pollution, through dumping and burning, or a promising source from which to produce chitosan as a biodegradable, biocompatible biopolymer which has a variety of agricultural, industrial, and biomedical applications. Chitosan is a deacetylated form of chitin that can be chemically recovered from shrimp shells through the three sequential stages of demineralization, deproteinization, and deacetylation. The main aim of this review paper is to summarize the recent literature on the chemical extraction of chitosan from shrimp shells and to represent the physicochemical properties of chitosan extracted from shrimp shells in different articles, such as chitosan yield, moisture content, solubility, ash content, and degree of deacetylation. Another aim is to analyze the influence of the main predictors of the chemical extraction stages (demineralization, deproteinization, and deacetylation) on the chitosan yield percentage by using a multilayer perceptron artificial neural network. This study showed that the deacetylation alkali concentration is the most crucial parameter, followed by the concentrations of acid and alkali of demineralization and deproteinization, respectively. The current review was conducted to be used in prospective studies for optimizing the chemical extraction of chitosan from shrimp wastes.

Knowledge of crustacean vision is lacking compared to the more well-studied vertebrates and insects. While crustacean visual systems are typically conserved morphologically, the molecular components (i.e. opsins) remain understudied. This review aims to characterize opsin diversity across crustacean lineages for an integrated view of visual system evolution. Using publicly available data from 95 species, we identified opsin sequences and classified them by clade. Our analysis produced 485 putative visual opsins and 141 non-visual opsins. The visual opsins were separated into six clades: long wavelength sensitive (LWS), middle wavelength sensitive (MWS) 1 and 2, short wavelength or ultraviolet sensitive (SWS/UVS) and a clade of thecostracan opsins, with multiple LWS and MWS opsin copies observed. The SWS/UVS opsins were relatively conserved in most species. The crustacean classes Cephalocarida, Remipedia and Hexanauplia exhibited reduced visual opsin diversity compared to others, with the malacostracan decapods having the highest opsin diversity. Non-visual opsins were identified from all investigated classes except Cephalocarida. Additionally, a novel clade of non-visual crustacean-specific, R-type opsins (Rc) was discovered. This review aims to provide a framework for future research on crustacean vision, with an emphasis on the need for more work in spectral characterization and molecular analysis. This article is part of the theme issue \'Understanding colour vision: molecular, physiological, neuronal and behavioural studies in arthropods\'.