Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Harvesting the Blood of Horshoe Crabs

In the biomedical industry, horseshoe crabs have been used in eye research, the manufacture of surgical sutures, and the development of wound dressings for burn victims. But perhaps most important is the use of a component of the horseshoe crab’s blood called Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL), which is essential for the detection of bacterial endotoxins in drugs and intravenous devices. 
The horseshoe crab plays a vital, if little-known, role in the life of anyone who has received an injectable medication. An extract of the horseshoe crab's blood is used by the pharmaceutical and medical device industries to ensure that their products, e.g., intravenous drugs, vaccines, and medical devices, are free of bacterial contamination.

To manufacture LAL,  companies catch adult horseshoe crabs, collect a portion(1/3) of their blood, and then release them alive. Although this industry bleeds individuals and then releases the animals, two studies estimate 10 to 15 percent of animals do not survive the bleeding procedure, which accounts for the mortality of 20,000 to 37,500 horseshoe crabs per year.

Unlike a human's blood, which is red, a horseshoe crab's copper-based blood is blue. - LINK

Horshoe crab bleeding. Photo credit: Andrew Tingle

Bled for LAL(Limulus amebocyte lysate test) - LINK

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Photo credit: Courtesy of Thirteen/WNET/PBS - LINK

Photo credit: Jeff Rotman - LINK

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A technician removes blood from horseshoe crabs. Photo credit: Andrew J. Martinez/Photo Researchers, Inc. - LINK

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Info from here

3 comments:

  1. Wow, its amazing to see blood that is of different color. I thought that all blood are red. I thought only aliens have different colored blood.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Значит, крабы аристократы.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bruh, that's kind of sad seeing all those horseshoe crabs being drained of their blood.

    ReplyDelete