My inquiry into the use of cochineal as a natural dye by Andean dyers and weavers touches on multiple issues, including human diet, health, and even into organic chemistry which I abandoned long ago. I register the concern of my vegetarian friends over the “vegetarian” status of foods. For example, the company Starbucks had to remove cochineal dye from its strawberry coffee drinks because of public protests about consuming insects.
Today I registered the word “jellyfish” in a TV advertisement for Prevagen®. Prevagen® is produced and marketed as a dietary supplement by Quincy Bioscience Manufacturing Inc., Madison WI. The company’s claim that the active ingredient, apoaequorin, improves memory recall is being scrutinized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Apoaequorin is an aprotein within the photoprotein, aequorin, which was first isolated from the glowing jellyfish, Aequorea vistoria (Cnidaria) by Osamu Shimomura in 1962. Apoaequorin is activated by calcium and is thought to modulate calcium homeostasis. This research had a remarkable start. Osamu Shimomura was born in Japan, and was a 16-years old in Nagasaki when the city was bombed in August 1945. Apparently he collected 10,000 jellyfishes at Friday Harbor Laboratory for his early research. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008 for his protein di
scoveries from the jellyfish. His Nobel Prize lecture (link below) recounts the difficult post-war process of getting his education and the challenges of discovery.
Prevagen® is vegetarian: the non-active capsule is vegetation; the filler is made with rice flour, not gelatin that comes from animal collagen, plus salts and magnesium stearates; and the aequorin source is now cloned (since 1985). While jellyfishes are not a source for the commercial production, it would be fantastic if Quincy Bioscience contributes to jellyfish conservation.
Read more:
Osamu Shimomura: Nobel Prize lecture https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2008/shimomura_lecture.pdf
Coelenterate bioluminescence: Shimomura O, Johnson FH. 1975. Chemical nature of bioluminescence systems in coelenterates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 72(4):1546–1549.
Apoaequorin: Shimomura O, Johnson FH, Saiga Y. 1962. Extraction, purification and properties of aequorin, a bioluminescent protein from the luminous hydromedusan, Aequorea. J Cell Comp Physiol 59:223–39. doi:10.1002/jcp.1030590302
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