Atlantic Horseshoe Crab - Medical Uses

Medical Uses

Horseshoe crabs are valuable as a species to the medical research community, and in medical testing. The above-mentioned clotting reaction of the animal's blood is used in the widely used Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL) test to detect bacterial endotoxins in pharmaceuticals and to test for several bacterial diseases.

Enzymes from horseshoe crab blood are used by astronauts in the International Space Station to test surfaces for unwanted bacteria and fungi.

A protein from horseshoe crab blood is also under investigation as a novel antibiotic.

LAL is obtained from the animals' blood. Horseshoe crabs are returned to the ocean after bleeding, although some 3% die during the process. Studies show that blood volume returns to normal in about a week, though blood cell count can take two to three months to fully rebound.

Read more about this topic:  Atlantic Horseshoe Crab

Famous quotes containing the word medical:

    Unusual precocity in children, is usually the result of an unhealthy state of the brain; and, in such cases, medical men would now direct, that the wonderful child should be deprived of all books and study, and turned to play or work in the fresh air.
    Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)

    One fellow I was dating in medical school ... was a veterinarian and he wanted to get married. I said, but you’re going to be moving to Minneapolis, and he said, oh, you can quit and I’ll take care of you. I said, “Go.”
    Sylvia Beckman (b. c. 1931)