Photosynthetic microorganisms and marine eukaryotes: a bioorganic approach for bioremediation

Many microorganisms and upper eukaryotes produce specific protection structures, known as spores or cysts, or cuticular external processes, useful in nature to spark their resistance to adverse environmental conditions.[1] Diatoms, waterish photosynthetic microorganisms, which uptake inorganic silicates to produce highly porous biosilica shells, called frustules, are often exploited for producing biohybrid materials for applications in photonics, optoelectronics and biomaterial science.[2] Aquatic and soil bacteria extrude specific polysaccharides and proteinaceous materials to coat and protect single cells and mobilize metals from soil and water sources. Egg capsules of certain marine snails are protein structures with such interesting meso-porosity, able to protect snail larvae from UV, toxic chemicals and salt unbalances. All these structures can be in principle chemically decorated via common surface, green, bioorganic chemistry approaches aiming to incorporate functional organic molecules, phosphorescent or magnetic nanoparticles and pharmacological moieties.[3-4] In this abstract we will present a plethora of bioorganic methodologies to increase bioremediation potential of matrices biosynthesized by marine and soil microorganisms and eukaryotes. In details: i. potentiated diatoms via the production of a fully organic artificial melanin-like coating around single cells [5], ii. eggs capsules from Sea Snail banded dye-murex functionalized with poly-phenolic chemical bulks, iii. soil microorganisms (Pseudomonas fluorescens, purple bacteria) immobilized on abiotic materials for bioelectronics and remediation perspectives. These bioorganic outcomes pave the way to the use of living microorganisms and their extracts in different scientific and applicative areas, such as biomedicine, cell-based technologies and living devices for bioremediation.