Review
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Nicolas Papon, Brent R. Copp, Vincent Courdavault
Summary: The marine environment is a rich source of biodiversity and chemical compounds, with marine natural products (MNPs) playing a significant role in drug discovery. However, challenges such as low bioavailability and complex structures hinder the discovery and supply of MNPs. Metabolic engineering offers a promising solution for sustainable production of MNPs in the future.
BIOTECHNOLOGY ADVANCES
(2022)
Review
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Pooja Sharma, Surendra Pratap Singh, Hafiz M. N. Iqbal, Roberto Parra-Saldivar, Sunita Varjani, Yen Wah Tong
Summary: Genetic engineering technology has significant applications in agriculture, such as increasing yields, reducing costs, and minimizing the ecological footprint. It plays a crucial role in sustainable development. However, issues related to regulation and environmental impact should be addressed.
Review
Engineering, Biomedical
Yiting Lou, Huiming Wang, Guanchen Ye, Yongzheng Li, Chao Liu, Mengfei Yu, Binbin Ying
Summary: This review discusses the important role of periosteum in bone defect repair and regeneration, as well as the need for developing tissue-engineered periosteum (TEP). The construction strategies for TEP are explored from the perspectives of materials, mechanical properties, cell-based strategies, and combination with growth factors. Current challenges and future perspectives for TEP development are also discussed.
ADVANCED HEALTHCARE MATERIALS
(2021)
Review
Cell Biology
Charles O. Okoye, Huifang Jiang, Yanfang Wu, Xia Li, Lu Gao, Yongli Wang, Jianxiong Jiang
Summary: Flavonoids are widely used in foods, pharmaceuticals, and nutraceuticals due to their safe and protective attributes. Traditional methods for producing flavonoids have limitations, but recent studies have shown the potential of bacterial biosynthesis of flavonoids from plant biomass. This article reviews the latest developments in bacterial biosynthesis of flavonoids and discusses their applications as natural food biocontrol agents.
JOURNAL OF CELLULAR PHYSIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Microbiology
Karina Hobmeier, Martin Oppermann, Natalie Stasinski, Andreas Kremling, Katharina Pflueger-Grau, Hans Joerg Kunte, Alberto Marin-Sanguino
Summary: The use of naturally-derived biomolecules in everyday products is a growing market. In this study, two methods were used to genetically enhance the production and excretion of the compatible solute ectoine. The supply-driven approach increased ectoine production by removing a specific enzyme, resulting in a 45% increase in ectoine titers. The demand-driven approach overexpressed transporter proteins, leading to a three-fold increase in ectoine excretion. Both methods are complementary and have the potential for future metabolic engineering projects.
FRONTIERS IN MICROBIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Tae-Gon Cha, Uyanga Tsedev, Alan Ransil, Amanda Embree, D. Benjamin Gordon, Angela M. Belcher, Christopher A. Voigt
Summary: This study introduces a new phagemid system that can produce M13 phage particles with a narrow length distribution that can be adjusted in increments of 0.3 nm, as well as variation in persistence length through coat protein mutation. A robotic workflow is used to produce a large number of aerogels for performance comparison, revealing a Pareto-optimal relationship. This work demonstrates the potential application of genetic engineering in material design.
ADVANCED FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS
(2021)
Review
Environmental Sciences
Carlos Garcia-Soto, Jan J. C. Seys, Oliver Zielinski, J. A. Busch, S. I. Luna, Jose Carlos Baez, C. Domegan, K. Dubsky, I. Kotynska-Zielinska, P. Loubat, Francesca Malfatti, G. Mannaerts, Patricia McHugh, P. Monestiez, Gro I. van der Meeren, G. Gorsky
Summary: Marine citizen science is rapidly growing in Europe, with potentially 500 projects running, focusing on beach-based projects with an average duration of 18-20 years. Technological advances are driving progress in marine citizen science.
FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Ana Rita Jesus, Alexandre Paiva, Ana Rita C. Duarte
Summary: Natural Deep Eutectic Systems (NADES) have emerged as alternative solvents to traditional organic solvents and ionic liquids, attracting researchers' attention in various fields, particularly in biotechnology. While most research focuses on NADES' use as solubility enhancers in pharmaceutical applications, their applicability in cryopreservation, protein and DNA stabilization, and other biomedical applications is still relatively unexplored. This article discusses current developments and future perspectives in this scientific field.
CURRENT OPINION IN GREEN AND SUSTAINABLE CHEMISTRY
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Medicinal
Ana Rotter, Antonia Giannakourou, Jesus E. Argente Garcia, Grazia Marina Quero, Charlene Auregan, George Triantaphyllidis, Amalia Venetsanopoulou, Roberta De Carolis, Chrysa Efstratiou, Marina Aboal, Maria Angeles Esteban Abad, Ernesta Grigalionyte-Bembic, Yannis Kotzamanis, Mate Kovac, Maja Ljubic Cmelar, Gian Marco Luna, Cristobal Aguilera, Francisco Gabriel Acien Fernandez, Juan Luis Gomez Pinchetti, Sonia Manzo, Iva Milasincic, Antun Nadarmija, Luisa Parrella, Massimiliano Pinat, Efstratios Roussos, Colin Ruel, Elisabetta Salvatori, Francisco Javier Sanchez Vazquez, Maria Semitiel Garcia, Antonio F. Skarmeta F. Gomez, Jan Ulcar, Cristian Chiavetta
Summary: Marine biotechnology in the Mediterranean region has great potential for innovation and economic growth, but is currently hindered by a lack of clear value chains and fragmented business initiatives. To address this issue, eight countries established blue biotechnology hubs and identified three promising value chains: algae production, integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, and valorization of aquaculture/fisheries/processing by-products. Stakeholder events provided valuable insight and feedback on the necessary skills and potential for development in this field.
Review
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
V. Vanessa Wergin, Clifford J. Mallett, Juergen Beckmann
Summary: This review article focuses on the constructs of choking under pressure and collective sport team collapse, exploring their similarities and differences, presenting current empirical understandings, and introducing intervention approaches. However, the mechanisms and effective interventions for both constructs are still debated and limited.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Food Science & Technology
Jatziri Mota-Gutierrez, Luca Cocolin
Summary: The review critically examines the accelerated use of lactobacilli in new food manufacturing and functional food product development, emphasizing the importance of addressing the social/environmental impact and safety repercussions.
TRENDS IN FOOD SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Maiara Monteiro Oliveira, Audrey Menegaz Proenca, Eduardo Moreira-Silva, Aline Machado de Castro, Francine Melise dos Santos, Leticia Marconatto, Renata Medina-Silva
Summary: The study evaluates deep-sea sediment bacterial isolates for biofilm adhesion, extracellular matrix production, and polymer degradation ability. High-density polyethylene (HDPE) fragments were subjected to abiotic weathering prior to bacterial colonization. Marine isolates exhibited different biofilm formation and extracellular matrix production strategies on weathered HDPE, suggesting potential for biodegradation of plastic fragments.
Review
Microbiology
Barbara Bourgade, Nigel P. Minton, M. Ahsanul Islam
Summary: The continuous mining and use of petroleum resources have harmful environmental impacts, leading to the search for sustainable alternatives for chemicals and fuels production. Bioprocesses utilizing microorganisms have gained interest as a potential solution.
FEMS MICROBIOLOGY REVIEWS
(2021)
Review
Plant Sciences
Vanesa Nahirnak, Natalia I. Almasia, Matias N. Gonzalez, Gabriela A. Massa, Cecilia A. Decima Oneto, Sergio E. Feingold, Horacio E. Hopp, Cecilia Vazquez Rovere
Summary: Potato is an important crop producing high-quality tubers. It can be improved through conventional breeding and genetic engineering. Genetic transformation, particularly using Agrobacterium-mediated approach, is the most commonly used method for potato improvement. Plastid transformation has also been developed. However, potato transformation protocols are highly dependent on the genotype.
FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Margaux Durand, David Touchette, Ya-Jou Chen, Elisse Magnuson, Jessica Wasserscheid, Charles W. Greer, Lyle G. Whyte, Ianina Altshuler
Summary: Global warming-induced sea ice loss has increased Arctic maritime traffic, which in turn increases the risk of ecosystem contamination from fuel spills and nutrient loading. A study was conducted to assess the impact of marine diesel on bacterial metabolic activity and diversity in Northwest Passage beach sediments. The results showed that higher temperatures and nutrients stimulated microbial activity, while diesel reduced it. Diesel exposure also significantly decreased microbial diversity and selectively enriched for the Psychrobacter genus. The study also identified microbial communities with stress response, aromatic compound, and ammonia assimilation metabolisms that were enriched in diesel-contaminated environments.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Han Wang, Yu Zhang, Douglas H. Bartlett, Xiang Xiao
Summary: Recent studies have found that bacterial strains isolated from surface environments and transferred under ambient pressure for decades still possess piezophilic characteristics under high hydrostatic pressure. This suggests that piezophiles may not be restricted to habitats with high pressure and have developed a common adaptation strategy to cope with various stresses. Transcriptomic analysis revealed differential gene expression related to antioxidant defense, intracellular compatible solute accumulation, and membrane lipid biosynthesis, which are crucial for cells to survive under high hydrostatic pressure.
Review
Biophysics
Nozomi Ando, Blanca Barquera, Douglas H. Bartlett, Eric Boyd, Audrey A. Burnim, Amanda S. Byer, Daniel Colman, Richard E. Gillilan, Martin Gruebele, George Makhatadze, Catherine A. Royer, Everett Shock, A. Joshua Wand, Maxwell B. Watkins
Summary: Over the past decade, sampling and genomic efforts have revealed a vast quantity and diversity of life in Earth's extreme environments, presenting a challenge in understanding the molecular basis of life in such inhospitable conditions. This review discusses the physicochemical properties of extreme environments, recent progress in extreme environmental genomics, and the current understanding of biomolecular adaptation to extreme conditions, as well as the need for methodologies adapted to extreme conditions for studying extremophiles' biomolecular structure-function relationships. Possible future directions in extreme biophysics are briefly discussed.
ANNUAL REVIEW OF BIOPHYSICS, VOL 50, 2021
(2021)
Review
Microbiology
Luke A. Fisher, Alexandra Pontefract, Sanjoy M. Som, Christopher E. Carr, Benjamin Klempay, Britney E. Schmidt, Jeff S. Bowman, Douglas H. Bartlett
Summary: Deep-sea hypersaline anoxic basins (DHABs) are uniquely stratified polyextreme environments found in enclosed seas, selecting for elusive microbes potentially living below Earth's recognized window of life. Specialized microbial communities have been found in the only known athalassohaline DHABs in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. These environments have high magnesium chloride concentrations, reducing water activity and causing extreme chaotropic stress on biomolecules. Inconsistent measurements of chaotropic activity in literature highlight the need for new methodologies in studying these environments.
ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Microbiology
Benjamin Klempay, Nestor Arandia-Gorostidi, Anne E. Dekas, Douglas H. Bartlett, Christopher E. Carr, Peter T. Doran, Avishek Dutta, Natalia Erazo, Luke A. Fisher, Jennifer B. Glass, Alexandra Pontefract, Sanjoy M. Som, Jesse M. Wilson, Britney E. Schmidt, Jeff S. Bowman
Summary: Researchers studied microbial communities under various salinity and chaotropic conditions in a Mars-analogue salt harvesting facility in Southern California, finding a proliferation of specialized halophilic Euryarchaeota in NaCl brines and evidence of exogenous genetic material preservation in MgCl2 brines, highlighting their potential as repositories of genetic biomarkers for future life-detection missions.
ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Limnology
Clemens Schauberger, Mathias Middelboe, Morten Larsen, Logan M. Peoples, Douglas H. Bartlett, Finn Kirpekar, Ashley A. Rowden, Frank Wenzhoefer, Bo Thamdrup, Ronnie N. Glud
Summary: Research on prokaryotic and viral abundance in hadal trenches and abyssal regions revealed a high spatial heterogeneity in hadal sediments, indicating a higher relative importance of viruses in hadal settings compared to abyssal environments.
LIMNOLOGY AND OCEANOGRAPHY
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Ye Lu, Yu Zhang, Jiahua Wang, Miao Zhang, Ying Wu, Xiang Xiao, Jun Xu
Summary: The study found that mesoscale eddies in the northern South China Sea primarily influenced bacterial community by enhancing bacterial abundance and altering community composition, driven by changes in salinity and nutrients.
Article
Genetics & Heredity
Wei-Jia Zhang, Chan Zhang, Siyu Zhou, Xue-Gong Li, Sophie Mangenot, Stephanie Fouteau, Thomas Guerin, Xiao-Qing Qi, Jian Yang, Douglas H. Bartlett, Long-Fei Wu
Summary: Hadal trenches are the deepest and least explored ecosystems on Earth. The genetic and physiological characteristics of the obligately piezophilic bacterium Moritella yayanosii DB21MT-5 isolated from the deepest oceanic sediment at the Challenger Deep, Mariana Trench have been revealed through comparative genomic analysis. The analysis identified depth-dependent distribution of energy metabolic pathways, compartmentalization of important metabolism and use of distinct defense systems, contributing to microbial adaptation to the extreme conditions of hadal trench.
MICROBIAL GENOMICS
(2021)
Article
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Na Yang, Chen Tian, Yongxin Lv, Jialin Hou, Zhifeng Yang, Xiang Xiao, Yu Zhang
Summary: This study designed specific primers to improve the detection resolution of unique microbial groups in oceanic trench sediments. Through high-throughput sequencing analysis, the V3-V4 hypervariable region was found to be the most informative and representative for oceanic trench microbial groups. Compared to universal primers, the newly designed primers were able to detect more microbial families, especially archaeal ones, resulting in the discovery of more species that were previously ignored in universal primer-based experiments.
APPLIED MICROBIOLOGY AND BIOTECHNOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Microbiology
Yongxin Lv, Shanshan Yang, Xiang Xiao, Yu Zhang
Summary: In the ocean, understanding the methane cycling in cold seeps is crucial to estimating the oceanic methane budget. Cold-seep eruptions can lead to the destruction of microbial ecosystems that drive methane cycling. This study simulated cold-seep eruptions and used genome-resolved metagenomics to analyze the dynamic changes in the microbial community during these events.
Article
Microbiology
Jessica M. Blanton, Logan M. Peoples, Mackenzie E. Gerringer, Caroline M. Iacuaniello, Natalya D. Gallo, Thomas D. Linley, Alan J. Jamieson, Jeffrey C. Drazen, Douglas H. Bartlett, Eric E. Allen
Summary: By examining the microbiome of abyssal and hadal fishes, we gain insight into the diversity and distribution of host-associated life at great depth.
Article
Ecology
Chen Tian, Yongxin Lv, Zhifeng Yang, Ruifeng Zhang, Zhuoyi Zhu, Hongmei Ma, Jing Li, Yu Zhang
Summary: Microbial communities in the Arctic's newly exposed soils have been underexplored. This study analyzed microbial communities in the glacial forefields of Svalbard using 16S rRNA genes and metagenomic analysis. The researchers found dominant bacterial groups and recovered metagenome-assembled genomes with genetic potential for various metabolic pathways. They also identified genes related to adaptation to low temperature and other stresses. This research provides ecological insights into the initial stage of soil development during glacier retreat.
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Kathleen M. Miller, Flora Tang, Sixuan Li, Kelli K. Mullane, Bronte R. Shelton, Lam Bui, Douglas H. Bartlett, Wayne L. Nicholson
Summary: Scientists are investigating the potential habitability of several permanently cold solar system bodies, such as Mars and icy moons. In this study, 14 strains of the bacterial genus Carnobacterium were subjected to cultivation under anaerobic conditions at 2°C and a range of pressures. Eleven of the strains showed measurable growth rates at all pressures tested, extending the physical boundaries of life in extreme extraterrestrial environments.
Article
Oceanography
Jiakang Li, Yu Zhang, Yongxin Lv, Xiang Xiao
Summary: This study isolated 55 fungal strains from deep-sea sediments in the Mariana Trench, and found that 41 strains were able to grow under hydrostatic pressures of 20 MPa. The study also highlighted the metabolic potential of these fungi in carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur cycling.
DEEP-SEA RESEARCH PART I-OCEANOGRAPHIC RESEARCH PAPERS
(2022)
Article
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Jiakang Li, Xiang Xiao, Meng Zhou, Yu Zhang
Summary: This study investigates the adaptation strategy of a Halomonas strain to high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) in deep-sea ecosystems, revealing the organism's antioxidant defense and energy regulation as key components of its adaptation strategy.
APPLIED AND ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY
(2023)
Review
Biochemical Research Methods
Pei-Ru Chen, Peng-Fei Xia
Summary: Carbon dioxide plays a crucial role in mitigating global climate change and supporting life on Earth. Synthetic biology and metabolic engineering offer a promising approach to enhance CO2 fixation by combining the advantages of autotrophic and heterotrophic organisms. This article reviews the current progress in constructing synthetic CO2 fixation pathways, discusses the underlying design principles and challenges, and provides insights into the future of carbon recycling through engineered synthetic carbon fixation pathways.
CURRENT OPINION IN BIOTECHNOLOGY
(2024)
