The biotechnology has created rapid developments in genetic engineering with a possibility of ‘tailoring’ organisms in order to optimize production of established or novel metabolites of commercial importance and of transferring genetic material (genes) from one organism to another. It has economized creating industrial processes with less power and renewable raw materials thus it is an powerful interdisciplinary and integrate natural and engineering sciences. Few textile industrial uses are focused here.

Fibers and Biopolymers: Cotton, wool and silk natural textile fibers are an asset but biotechnology creating special fibers and enhance yields of existing fibers. Cotton is leading worldwide textile fiber with ca 20 million tons grown/year by about 85 countries but it is vulnerable to a lot of insects, and to preserve yields, significant amounts of pesticides are in use. Cotton is prone to infestation by weeds under intense irrigation conditions and wants throughout its growth cycle, and has poor tolerance to any of the herbicides. Hence biotechnologists have put forward short-term objectives on genetically engineering insect, illness and herbicide resistance into cotton plant along with modification of fiber top quality and properties to have high performance cottons. Naturally colored cottons are attracting the globe market place hence transgenic intensely colored cottons (blues and vivid reds) is dream of the day that can replace bleaching and dyeing.

Biotechnology has largely influenced animal fiber production, in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer, diagnostics, genetically engineered vaccines and therapeutic drugs are other catchments of it. CSIRO, Australia’s national research organization is put up efforts for genetic modification of sheep to resist attack from blowfly larvae by engineering a sheep that secretes an insect repellent from its hair follicles and ‘biological wool shearing’’. And is expected to artificial epidermal growth factor which on injection into sheep interrupts hair growth, inside a month, it breaks up in wool fiber and fleece can be pulled off whole in half the time it takes to shear a sheep.

Fermentation is developing biopolymers at significant-scale i.e. bacterial storage compound polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) is developed by Zeneca Bioproducts and is as produced ‘Biopol’. It high molecular weight linear polyester and thermoplastic (melts at 180°C) and can be melt spun into biocompatible and biodegradable fibers appropriate for surgical use where human body enzymes slowly degrade sutures. Biopol is being employed as conventional plastics for shampoo bottles but it is not economic, study is on to generate Biopol from plants, almost certainly from genetically engineered assortment of rape. Polysaccharides chitin, alginate, dextran and hyaluronic acid biopolymers are of interest in wound healing as chitin and its derivative chitosan are important components of fungal cell walls, at present manufactured from sea food (shellfish) wastes. Patents taken out by Japanese Unitika cite a use of fibers created out of chitin in wound dressings. At BTTG, research has been directed for use of intact fungal filaments as a direct source of chitin or chitosan fiber to produce inexpensive wound dressings and other novel supplies. Tests are carried out at Welsh School of Pharmacy indicate that these merchandise have wound healing acceleration properties. Wound dressings based on calcium alginate fibers have already been developed by Courtaulds and are marketed as ‘Sorbsan’. Present supplies of this polysaccharide rely on its extraction from brown seaweed’s. Nonetheless, a polymer of similar structure can also be produced by fermentation from certain species of bacteria. Dextran, which is manufactured by fermentation of sucrose by Leuconostoc mesenteroides or related species of bacteria, is also being developed as a fibrous non-woven for specialty finish-uses such as wound dressings. Extra special biopolymers are now coming onto marketplace thanks to biotechnology e.g. hyaluronic acid a polydisaccharide of D-glucuronic acid and N-acetyl glucosamine located in connective tissue matrices of vertebrates and is also present in capsules of some bacteria. The original technique of production by extraction from rooster combs was extremely inefficient requiring five kg of rooster combs to supply 4 g of hyaluronic acid. Fermentech, a British biotechnology firm, is now creating hyaluronic acid by fermentation. The very same amount of high quality purified hyaluronic acid can be obtained from 4 liters of fermentation broth as opposed to 5 kg of rooster combs.

Diverse biotechnological routes for cellulose production are getting worked out globally, cellulose is produced as an extra cellular polysaccharide by numerous bacteria in form of ribbon-like micro fibrils, and can be utilised to generate moulded supplies of fairly high strength. Sony, a Japanese electronics business has patented a way of producing hi-fi loudspeaker cones and diaphragms from bacterial cellulose. An option route to cellulose, still at a quite early stage of development, concerns in vitro cultivation of plant cells. Culturing cells of numerous strains of Gossypium can generate cotton fibers in vitro include a far more uniform item displaying particularly desirable properties. Plant tissue culture can present a steady, all year supply of goods with out climatic or geographic limitations free of charge of contamination from pests. Proteins are intriguing biopolymers for utilizing new genetic manipulation techniques where animal and plant proteins genes (e.g. collagen, different silks) can now be transferred into suitable microbial hosts and proteins produced by fermentation. US army is taking up spider silk as a high performance fiber for bulletproof vests.

Enzymes

Chemical reactions by catalytic proteins (enzymes) are a central feature of living systems, living cells makes enzymes though the enzymes themselves are not alive and we can encourage living cells to make much more enzymes than they would normally make.  Or to make a slightly various enzyme (protein engineering) with improved characteristics of specificity, stability and performance in industrial processes and operate under mild conditions of pH and temperature. Many enzymes exhibit excellent specificity and stereo selectivity. With a notable exception of starch-size removal by amylases, even so, scant attention is given to application of enzymes in textile processing for preparation textile fibers e.g. flax and hemp by dew retting entails action of pectolytic enzymes from different microorganisms, which degrade pectin in middle lamella of these plant fibers. Yet no attempts appear to be taken to use isolated enzyme preparations for desired effects despite the fact that their effectiveness has been demonstrated in the laboratory.

Use of isolated enzymes to eliminate fats and waxes, pectin’s, seed-coat material and colored impurities from loom state cotton and cotton/polyester fabrics, leading to a novel, low-power fabric-preparation process, (replace scouring and bleaching) is investigated at BTTG. Only partial achievement is produced employing existing commercial enzyme preparations due to the recalcitrant nature of some of components and method was identified to be too slow and for that reason uneconomic for existing applications. Enzyme that is becoming applied in textile processing for removal of hydrogen peroxide prior to dyeing is catalase. Undoubtedly, use of microbial enzymes can be expected to expand into a lot of other areas of textile market replacing existing chemical or mechanical processes in not too distant future.

Contrary to textile processing enzymes are used in detergents considering that their inception in 1960’s, and washing powders are referred to as ‘biological’, and degrade stains with milder washing conditions at lower temperatures saving power and protects fabric. Cellulose enzymes could replace pumice stones employed to create ‘stone-washed’ denim garments, stones can har
m clothes, particularly the hems and waistbands, and most producers are now employing enzyme therapy. Cellulose enzymes are in biopolishing, a removal of fuzz from surface of cellulosic fibers, which eliminates pilling producing fabrics smoother and cleaner seeking. Similarly protease enzymes are developed for wool.

Intriguing utilizes of enzymes are in biotransformation with biocatalytic transformation of 1 chemical to one more. In practice, either intact cells, an extract from such cells or an isolated enzyme could be utilized as the catalyst technique of a particular reaction. Concentration of individual enzymes in cells is typically much less than 1 per cent this can now be increased using gene amplification tactics. Bulk chemical production by oil-based processes is becoming replaced by biotransformations, biotechnology competes with chemical synthesis. For example, optical activity of chemicals as of polymer precursors is most likely to grow and biotransformation has a particular edge over traditional chemical strategies.

Textile Auxiliaries: These are dyes produced by fermentation or from plants in future in the nineteenth century several of colors utilised to dye textiles came from plants e.g. woad, indigo and madder. Numerous microorganisms generate pigments in the course of their growth, which are substantive as indicated by permanent staining and associated with mildew growth on textiles and plastics. Some species generate up to 30% of their dry weight as pigment, such microbial pigments are benzoquinone, naphthoquinone, anthraquinone, and perinaphthenone and benzofluoranthenequinone derivatives, resembling in some instances the critical group of vat dyes. Microorganisms provide excellent potential for direct production of novel textile dyes or dye intermediates by controlled fermentation methods replacing chemical synthesis. Production and evaluation of microbial pigments as textile colorants is presently becoming investigated at BTTG. One more biotechnological route for producing pigments for use in food, cosmetics or textile industries is from plant cell culture, e.g. red pigment shikonin (cosmetics) is being commercially produced considering that 1983 in Japan. Shikonin was extracted from roots of five-year-old Lithosperum erythrorhiz plants where it makes up about 1 to two percent of dry weight of roots. In tissue culture, pigment yields of about 15 percent of dry weight of root cells have been achieved.

New Analytical Tools: Function on molecular biology at BTTG has led to development of species-certain DNA probes for animal fibers to detect adulteration of high value specialty fibers such as cashmere by a lot less expensive fibers e.g. wool and yak hair. Rapid strategies are being evolved to assist in early detection of biodeterioration of textile and other materials. BTTG have shown that presence of viable microorganisms on textiles can be assessed making use of enzyme luciferase isolated from firefly (Photinus pyralis), which releases light (bioluminescence) in mixture with ATP produced by the microorganisms.

Waste Management: Microbes or their enzymes are being utilised to degrade toxic wastes instead of conventional processes, therefore waste therapy is useful industrial asset of biotechnology. In textile industry color removal from dyehouse effluent, toxic heavy metal compounds and pentachlorophenol employed overseas as a rot-proofing therapy of cotton fabrics but washed out during subsequent processing in the UK pose a challenge for disposal. At present efforts are on to resolve such problems maybe biotechnology would appear to supply the most powerful solutions.

Conclusions: Biotechnology is becoming treated as upcoming science with enormous commercial implications for many industrial sectors in years to come. It has successfully developed new goods, opened up new doors, expedited production and helped to clean up environment. Mainly biotechnology is contributing a lot to textile industries but it existing awareness is low. Michael Heseltine lately launched ‘Biotechnology Means Business’ initiative in the UK to inform businesses about biotechnology and put them in touch with experts to deploy biotechnology to give a competitive edge to their company to win new markets. E.g. downstream processing right after fermentation accounts for at least 70 percent of production expenses in biotechnology and there is the need to have for improved filtration and separation strategies. Hollow fibers and membranes, which separate molecules according to size, are discovering increased application in this region.

Enzymes are utilised in detergents e.g. protease removes stains caused by proteins such as blood, grass, egg and human sweat. Amylase removes starch-based stains such as those produced by potatoes, pasta, rice and custard. Lipase breaks down fats, oils and greases removing stains based on salad oils, butter, fat-based sauces and soups, and specific cosmetics such as lipstick. Cellulase brightens and softens the fabric, and release particles of dirt trapped in the fibers. Briefly biotechnology improves plant varieties utilized in production of textile fibers and in fiber properties, and derives fibers from animals and well being care of the animals along with novel fibers from biopolymers and genetically modified microorganisms. The survismeter is a successful tool to characterize broth fermentation.

References

Biotechnology Indicates Organization: state of the art report on ‘The Textile &amp Clothing Industries’, 1995, The Biotechnology Unit, DTI, LGC, Queens Rd., Teddington, Middlesex, TW11 0LY, UK. Little Book on Enzymes and the Environment, 1993, NovoNordisk A/S, DK – 2880, Bagsvaerd, Denmark.

Glossary: Biotechnology: Use of living organisms or their cellular, sub cellular or molecular constituents to manufacture goods and establish processes. DNA: Deoxyribonucleic acid, chemical molecule to carry hereditary data to pass from parent to offspring. DNA Probe: Single DNA strand utilized to detect a presence of complementary strands of DNA. Enzymes: Protein molecules that speed up specific chemical reactions and remain unchanged. Gene: Unit of heredity composed of DNA.

Genetic Engineering: A range of techniques for manipulating DNA and thereby modifying the genetic structure of living organisms. Transgenesis: Stable incorporation of foreign DNA from 1 species into another. For example, incorporating genes from a bacterium has developed insect resistant transgenic plants.