Chitin crustacean waste and mushrooms for possible development of products in tissue engineering, medicine, and industry. Chitin Chitin (CHON) ( ), a long-chain polymer of "N"-acetylglucosamine, is a derivative of glucose. It is a primary component of cell walls in fungi, the exoskeletons of arthropods, such as crustaceans (e.g., crabs, lobsters and shrimps) and insects, the radulae of molluscs, cephalopod beaks, and the scales of fish and lissamphibians. The structure of chitin is comparable to another polysaccharide - cellulose, forming crystalline nanofibrils or whiskers. In terms of function, it may be compared to the protein keratin. Chitin has proved useful for
Industrial fermentation of glucose or other carbon sources which would encourage growth, and like primary metabolites are released into the surrounding medium without rupture of the cell membrane. In the early days of the biotechnology industry, most biopharmaceutical products were made in "E. coli"; by 2004 more biopharmaceuticals were manufactured in eukaryotic cells, like CHO cells, than in microbes, but used similar bioreactor systems. Insect cell culture systems came into use in the 2000s as well. Of primary interest among the intracellular components are microbial enzymes: catalase, amylase, protease, pectinase, glucose isomerase, cellulase, hemicellulase, lipase, lactase, streptokinase and many others. Recombinant proteins,