Electrosynthesis of organic compounds from carbon dioxide is catalyzed by a diversity of acetogenic microorganisms

Microbial electrosynthesis, a process in which microorganisms use electrons derived from electrodes to reduce carbon dioxide to multicarbon, extracellular organic compounds, is a potential strategy for capturing electrical energy in carbon-carbon bonds of readily stored and easily distributed products, such as transportation fuels. To date, only one organism, the acetogen Sporomusa ovata, has been shown to be capable of electrosynthesis. The purpose of this study was to determine if a wider range of microorganisms is capable of this process. Several other acetogenic bacteria, including two other Sporomusa species, Clostridium ljungdahlii, Clostridium aceticum, and Moorella thermoacetica, consumed current with the production of organic acids. In general acetate was the primary product, but 2-oxobutyrate and formate also were formed, with 2-oxobutyrate being the predominant identified product of electrosynthesis by C. aceticum. S. sphaeroides, C. ljungdahlii, and M. thermoacetica had high (>80%) efficiencies of electrons consumed and recovered in identified products. The acetogen Acetobacterium woodii was unable to consume current. These results expand the known range of microorganisms capable of electrosynthesis, providing multiple options for the further optimization of this process.     

筛选生物转化H_2/CO_2气体产乙酸的同型产乙酸菌混培物

同型产乙酸菌是一类具有巨大工业应用潜力的微生物类群,可利用合成气生成乙醇和乙酸等燃料和化学品。本研究采集城市污泥样品利用Hungate滚管法进行同型产乙酸菌的筛选,并利用其进行H2/CO2气体的生物转化,研究了p H对其乙酸和乙醇生成情况的影响。结果表明,所获得的同型产乙酸菌混培物组成为永达尔梭菌,纺缍形赖氨酸芽胞杆菌和蜡样芽胞杆菌等。该混培物最适p H为5-7。p H为7时混培物利用H2/CO2气体得到乙酸浓度可达到31.69 mmol/L。本研究获得了一种可利用H2/CO2合成乙酸的同型产乙酸菌混培物,为合成气生物转化的工业应用提供了有效的微生物资源。     

Microbial production of ethanol from carbon monoxide

Production of ethanol from fermentation of CO has received much attention in the last few years with several companies proposing to use CO fermentation in their ethanol production processes. The genomes of two CO fermenters, Clostridium ljungdahlii and Clostridium carboxidivorans, have recently been sequenced. The genetic information obtained from this sequencing is aiding molecular biologists who are enhancing ethanol and butanol production by genetic manipulation. Several studies have optimized media for CO fermentation, which has resulted in enhanced ethanol production. Also, new reactor designs involving the use of hollow fiber membranes have reduced mass transfer barriers that have hampered previous CO fermentation efforts.     

Development and comparisons of efficient gas-cultivation systems for anaerobic carbon monoxide-utilizing microorganisms

We describe a system for the cultivation of gaseous substrate utilizing microorganisms that overcomes some of the limitations of fixed volume culture vessels and the costs associated with sparging. Cali-5-Bond gas-sampling bag was used as the culture vessel. The bags contain approximately six times more mass of CO than the 40 mL vials at 1 atm of pressure and performed equally to the 40 mL vials in terms of their ability to maintain the composition of the gas over extended incubation times. Experiments using Clostridium ljungdahlii and CO as the sole carbon and energy source in both the gas sampling bag cultivation system and the traditional vial system demonstrated that this culture had a 15x increase in optical density in 24 h of incubation. The gas-sampling bags offer a viable alternative to gas sparging while overcoming the limitations of fixed volume culture vessels.     

A versatile method for preparation of hydrated microbial–latex biocatalytic coatings for gas absorption and gas evolution

We describe a latex wet coalescence method for gas-phase immobilization of microorganisms on paper which does not require drying for adhesion. This method reduces drying stresses to the microbes. It is applicable for microorganisms that do not tolerate desiccation stress during latex drying even in the presence of carbohydrates. Small surface area, 10-65?μm thick coatings were generated on chromatography paper strips and placed in the head-space of vertical sealed tubes containing liquid to hydrate the paper. These gas-phase microbial coatings hydrated by liquid in the paper pore space demonstrated absorption or evolution of H(2), CO, CO(2) or O(2). The microbial products produced, ethanol and acetate, diffuse into the hydrated paper pores and accumulate in the liquid at the bottom of the tube. The paper provides hydration to the back side of the coating and also separates the biocatalyst from the products. Coating reactivity was demonstrated for Chlamydomonas reinhardtii CC124, which consumed CO(2) and produced 10.2?±?0.2?mmol?O(2)?m(-2)?h(-1), Rhodopseudomonas palustris CGA009, which consumed acetate and produced 0.47?±?0.04?mmol?H(2)?m(-2)?h(-1), Clostridium ljungdahlii OTA1, which consumed 6?mmol CO?m(-2)?h(-1), and Synechococcus sp. PCC7002, which consumed CO(2) and produced 5.00?±?0.25?mmol O(2)?m(-2)?h(-1). Coating thickness and microstructure were related to microbe size as determined by digital micrometry, profilometry, and confocal microscopy. The immobilization of different microorganisms in thin adhesive films in the gas phase demonstrates the utility of this method for evaluating genetically optimized microorganisms for gas absorption and gas evolution.     

Ethnobotany of Ghalegay,District Swat,Pakistan*

Ethnobotanical study of plants revealed that the local community of Ghalegy, District Swat, invariably uses 126 species of 59 families for various purposes. Based on their traditional local uses, fifty- seven species ( 4512%) were classified as medicinal, forty-seven as fire wood ( 3713%) , forty- five as forage ( 3517%) , twenty- eight as honey bee species ( 2212%) , twenty- seven as vegetable species ( 2114%) , 25 as edible fruits ( 14 wild and 11cultivated) , thirteen as timber wood ( 1013%) , twelve as ornamental ( 91 5%) , eleven as furniture wood, ten as shelter and thatch makers ( 719%) , ten as fencing ( 719%) , five as poisonous ( 4%) , four as religiousPsuperstitious species, three species used in making hand sticks and wooden tools ( 21 4%) , three as utensil cleaner species ( 214%) , three as evil repellent and one as fish poisoning species. The area is in plant resources and traditional knowledge but it needs ecological management for its sustainability.     

Ethnobotany of Ghalegay, District Swat, Pakistan

Ethnobotanical study of plants revealed that the local community of Ghalegy, District Swat, invariably uses 126 species of 59 families for various purposes. Based on their traditional local uses, fifty-seven species （45.2%） were classifted as medicinal, forty-seven as fire wood （37.3 % ）, forty-five as forage （35.7 % ）, twenty-eight as honey bee species （22.2%）, twenty-seven as vegetable species （21.4%）, 25 as edible fruits （14 wild and llcultivated）, thirteen as timberwood （10.3%）, twelve as ornamental （9.5%）, eleven as furniture wood, ten as shelter and thatch makers （7.9%）, ten as fencing （7.9%）, five as poisonous （4%）, four as religious/superstitious species, three species used in making hand sticks and wooden tools （2.4%）, three as utensil cleaner species （2.4%）, three as evil repellent and one as fish poisoning species. The area is in plant resources and traditional knowledge but it needs ecological management for its sustainability.     

农牧结合生态工程的基本理论与实践

农牧结合生态工程是一个复杂的农业生态、经济和技术系统工程,它由植物(种植业)、动物(养殖业)和微生物(连接种养业)3个子系统组成,其关键是建设一个以"四、三、二、一"畜牧业生产模式为主要内容的高效节粮型畜牧生态工程,它要求用尽可能少的自然资源,在尽可能短的周期内,生产尽可能多而优的农(牧)产品,以获取尽可能高的经济效益,达到或维持尽可能最佳的生态平衡.     

孕烷X受体的研究进展

核受体是一类高度保守的配体依赖性转录因子家族,在哺乳动物发育、繁殖、免疫应答、心血管功能、组织生长、肿瘤形成、外源物清除及糖类和脂质代谢等生理过程中发挥重要作用。机体对外源物质的清除主要是由孕烷X受体等核受雄介导的。孕烷X受体最早是作为外源物感受器而被研究的,可以被大多数亲脂性药物等外源性化合物及一些内源性化合物如胆汁酸等结构差异很大的配体激活,进而与视黄醇类X受体等形成异源二聚体,结合在ER6、XREM等DNA元件上,调控下游靶基因（包括一相代谢酶、二相结合酶及药物转运体等基因）的表达。此外,孕烷X受体在能量代谢和免疫反应中也有重要作用,参与某些代谢疾病的发生发展,且已在动物模型中被证明是Ⅱ型糖尿病、血脂异常、肥胖症和动脉粥样硬化等代谢疾病治疗的有效靶标。我们主要就其发现、结构、组织分布、作用方式、自身表达的调节等方面的最新研究进行综述。     

Recovery of Cell-Bound Interferon

Interferon could be recovered from homologous cells to which it was applied but could not be recovered from heterologous cells. The amount of interferon that could be recovered from cells corresponded to the sensitivity of the cells to the antiviral activity of the interferon: mouse embryo fibroblasts, which were 5 to 10 times as sensitive as L-929 cells to interferon, bound 5 to 10 times more interferon than the latter, whereas Lpa cells, which were only one-third as sensitive as L-929 cells to interferon, bound only one-third as much as the latter. The concentration of cell-bound interferon was as much as 150 times the extracellular concentration of interferon applied to the cells. Interferon bound to cells at 4 C with the same efficiency as it did to cells at 37 C, and actinomycin D-treated cells bound interferon as well as normal cells. Even though the total amount of interferon bound to cells was as much as 30% of the amount of interferon applied to them, no loss of antiviral activity was detectable from the medium.     

Purkyn? cells and Betz cells

J.E. Purkyn? was the first to discover, by achromatic microscopy of stained and fixed as well as of fresh material, that animal tissues in general, and those of the central nervous system in particular, are made up of cells, as are those of plants. His discoveries laid the foundations of modern research on the ultrastructure and biophysies of the cerebellar neurons which bear his name, as well as on other types of neurons, in vitro as well as in vivo.     

BIOLOG系统鉴定黄瓜根围促生菌的初步研究

对筛选出的８株具有明显促生防病作用的黄瓜根围促生菌ＣＮ１１,ＣＮ３１,ＣＮ４５,ＣＮ１ １６,ＣＮ１２９,ＸＢ１２０,ＸＢ５,ＸＢ４１通过ＢＩＯＬＯＧ法进行了分类鉴定,分别为：铜绿假单胞菌（Ｐｓｅｎｄｏｍｏｎａｓ ａｅｒｕｇｉｎｏｓａ）,波纹假单胞菌（Ｐ． Ｃｏｒｒｕｇａｔａ）,短芽孢杆菌（Ｂａｃｉｌｌｕｓ ｂｒｅｖｉｓ）,荧光假单胞菌Ｂ型（Ｐ． Ｆｌｕｏｒｅｓｃｅｎｓ ｔｙｐｅ Ｂ）,铜绿假单胞菌（Ｐ． Ａｅｒｕｇｉｎｏｓａ）,荧光假     

An Improved Computational Prediction Model for Lysine Succinylation Sites Mapping on Homo sapiens by Fusing Three Sequence Encoding Schemes with the Random Forest Classifier

Background Lysine succinylation is one of the reversible protein post-translational modifications (PTMs), which regulate the structure and function of proteins. It plays a significant role in various cellular physiologies including some diseases of human as well as many other organisms. The accurate identification of succinylation site is essential to understand the various biological functions and drug development.Methods In this study, we developed an improved method to predict lysine succinylation sites mapping on Homo sapiens by the fusion of three encoding schemes such as binary, the composition of k-spaced amino acid pairs (CKSAAP) and amino acid composition (AAC) with the random forest (RF) classifier. The prediction performance of the proposed random forest (RF) based on the fusion model in a comparison of other candidates was investigated by using 20-fold cross-validation (CV) and two independent test datasets were collected from two different sources.Results The CV results showed that the proposed predictor achieves the highest scores of sensitivity (SN) as 0.800, specificity (SP) as 0.902, accuracy (ACC) as 0.919, Mathew correlation coefficient (MCC) as 0.766 and partial AUC (pAUC) as 0.163 at a false-positive rate (FPR) = 0.10 and area under the ROC curve (AUC) as 0.958. It achieved the highest performance scores of SN as 0.811, SP as 0.902, ACC as 0.891, MCC as 0.629 and pAUC as 0.139 and AUC as 0.921 for the independent test protein set-1 and SN as 0.772, SP as 0.901, ACC as 0.836, MCC as 0.677 and pAUC as 0.141 at FPR = 0.10 and AUC as 0.923 for the independent test protein set-2. It also outperformed all the other existing prediction models.Conclusion The prediction performances as discussed in this article recommend that the proposed method might be a useful and encouraging computational resource for lysine succinylation site prediction in the case of human population.     

Familial true hermaphroditism: paternal and maternal transmission of true hermaphroditism (46,XX) and XX maleness in the absence of Y-chromosomal sequences

We report on 46,XX true hermaphroditism and 46,XX maleness coexisting in the same pedigree, with maternal as well as paternal transmission of the disorder. Molecular genetic analysis showed that both hermaphrodites as well as the 46,XX male were negative for Y-chromosomal sequences. Thus, this pedigree is highly informative and allows the following conclusions: first, the maternal as well as paternal transmission of the disorder allows the possibility of an autosomal dominant as well as an X-chromosomal dominant mode of inheritance; second, testicular determination in the absence of Y-specific sequences in familial 46,XX true hermaphrodites as well as in 46,XX males seems to be due to the varying expression of the same genetic defect; and third, there is incomplete penetrance of the defect.     

Synthesis of 4-cyanophenyl and 4-nitrophenyl 1,5-dithio-D-ribopyranosides as well as their 2-deoxy and 2,3-dideoxy derivatives possessing antithrombotic activity

1,2,3,4-Tetra-O-acetyl-5-thio-D-ribopyranose as well as its 1-bromide were used as donors in the reaction with 4-cyano- and 4-nitrobenzenethiol, to give the corresponding thioglycosides in different anomeric ratios depending on the reaction conditions. Zemplén deacetylation afforded 4-cyanophenyl as well as 4-nitrophenyl 1,5-dithio-alpha- and beta-D-ribopyranosides, respectively. 1,3,4-Tri-O-acetyl-2-deoxy-5-thio-D-erythro-pentopyranose was synthesized from methyl 2-deoxy-D-erythro-pentofuranoside and was coupled with 4-cyano- and 4-nitrobenzenethiol to give anomeric mixtures from which 4-cyanophenyl as well as 4-nitrophenyl 1,5-dithio-beta-D-erythro-pentopyranosides were isolated after deacetylation. 1,4-Di-O-acetyl-2,3-dideoxy-5-thio-D-glycero-pentopyranose was obtained starting from 1,2,5,6-di-O-isopropylidene-D-mannitol and used as the donor in the glycosylation reaction with 4-cyano- and 4-nitrobenzenethiol. The resulting anomeric mixtures were separated to give, after deacetylation, 4-cyanophenyl as well as 4-nitrophenyl 2,3-dideoxy-1,5-dithio-beta-D-glycero-pentopyranosides. All of these thioglycosides showed significant antithrombotic activity on rats after oral administration.     

Protective effects of green tea catechins on alveolar macrophages against bacterial infections

Bacterial pneumonia in immunocompromised patients as well as elderly persons often becomes a life threatening disease, even when effective antibiotics are used extensively. In addition, the appearance of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in medical facilities as well as in patients requires another approach to treat such patients besides treatment with antibiotics. In this regard, green tea catechins, such as epigallocatechin gallate (EGCg), may be one of the potential agents for such purpose due to its possible potential immunomodulatory as well as antimicrobial activity. The studies by us showed that EGCg enhanced the in vitro resistance of alveolar macrophages to Legionella pneumophila infection by selective immunomodulatory effects on cytokine formation. Furthermore, the tobacco smoking-induced impairment of alveolar macrophages regarding antibacterial as well as immune activity was also recovered by EGCg treatment. These results indicate that EGCg may be a possible potential immunotherapeutic agent against respiratory infections in immunocompromised patients, such as heavy smokers.     

Variability in Race Tests with Heterodera glycines

Tests of Heterodera glycines on differential host plants to determine races were run in Arkansas, Illinois, and North Carolina to check the uniformity of results of the test. Methods used at the three locations varied somewhat. Results indicate that the race test is highly variable. Isolates previously identified as race 1 were identified as race 1 or race 3; those identified as race 2 were identified in these tests as race 2, 4, 9, or 14; those previously identified as race 3 were identified as race 1 or race 3; those identified as race 4 were identified in these tests as race 4 or race 14; those previously identified as race 5 were identified as race 2; and those previously identified as race 6 were identified as race 1, 2, 4, 5, or 6. Part of the variability resulted from the use of differential host plants from different sources and part from nonstandard differential host plants. Other variations may be due to inability to obtain completely uniform inoculum or to recover all nematodes that penetrated.     

Hereditary defects in both germ cells and the blood-testis barrier system in as-mutant rats: evidence from spermatogonial transplantation and tracer-permeability analysis

The rat mutant allele as is located on chromosome 12. Homozygous (as/as) males show arrested spermatogenesis, mainly at the pachytene spermatocyte stage. It is not clear whether this defective spermatogenesis is caused by a failure in a somatic cell component that supports spermatogenesis or in the germ cell itself. Spermatogonial transplantation was performed to identify the genetically defective site in the as/as testis. In experiment 1, germ cells collected from as/as testes were transplanted into the testes of immunodeficient mice and normal rats. In experiment 2, normal rat germ cells were transplanted into as/as testes. The results of experiment 1 showed arrest of spermatogenesis at the pachytene spermatocyte stage, accompanied by a characteristic morphological feature, i.e., the formation of inclusion-like bodies in the cytoplasm, in both rat and mouse recipients. These results revealed the intrinsic effect of the mutant gene(s) on germ cells. In experiment 2, no restoration of spermatogenesis was detected in the recipient testes despite thorough histological examination. These results suggest that defects in a somatic cell component in as/as testes prevent the donor germ cells from colonizing and regaining their spermatogenetic ability. When the seminiferous epithelium of the as/as testis was examined by electron microscopy, no morphological abnormalities, including the formation of ectoplasmic specializations between adjacent Sertoli cells, were observed in the somatic cell components. However, when cytochrome c was applied as a tracer material, it penetrated the tight junctions between the Sertoli cells, indicating dysfunction of the blood-testis barrier in the as/as testis. The lack of restoration of spermatogenesis in the as/as testis after transplantation of normal germ cells may have been caused by the unfavorable environment in the seminiferous epithelium resulting from the incomplete barrier system between adjoining Sertoli cells. The gene(s) at the as locus may have a role in both germ cell differentiation and the establishment of the blood-testis barrier.     

Crosstalk between the DNA damage response,histone modifications and neovascularisation

Neovascularisation is critical in several malignant and inflammatory conditions, as well as in the course of eye disorders. During new vessel formation, endothelial cell functions, such as proliferation and sprouting are very important and are regulated by a variety of growth factors. The DNA damage response machinery as well as factors regulating histone modifications, such as histone deacetylases, regulate cell fate as well as gene expression. Recent evidence has pointed to potential interactions among BRCA1, H2AX and SIRT1 in these intracellular pathways and neovascularisation, which will be reviewed here.