Getting Grip on Phosphorus: Potential of Microalgae as a Vehicle for Sustainable Usage of This Macronutrient
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SUBMITTER: Solovchenko A
PROVIDER: S-EPMC11243885 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:BACKGROUND:Geriatricians are often confronted with unexpected health outcomes in older adults with complex multimorbidity. Aging researchers have recently called for a focus on physical resilience as a new approach to explaining such outcomes. Physical resilience, defined as the ability to resist functional decline or recover health following a stressor, is an emerging construct. METHODS:Based on an outline of the state-of-the-art in research on the measurement of physical resilience, this article describes what tests to predict resilience can already be used in clinical practice and which innovations are to be expected soon. RESULTS:An older adult's recovery potential is currently predicted by static tests of physiological reserves. Although geriatric medicine typically adopts a multidisciplinary view of the patient and implicitly performs resilience management to a certain extent, clinical management of older adults can benefit from explicitly applying the dynamical concept of resilience. Two crucial leads for advancing our capacity to measure and manage the resilience of individual patients are advocated: first, performing multiple repeated measurements around a stressor can provide insight about the patient's dynamic responses to stressors; and, second, linking psychological and physiological subsystems, as proposed by network studies on resilience, can provide insight into dynamic interactions involved in a resilient response. CONCLUSION:A big challenge still lies ahead in translating the dynamical concept of resilience into clinical tools and guidelines. As a first step in bridging this gap, this article outlines what opportunities clinicians and researchers can already exploit to improve prediction, understanding, and management of resilience of older adults. J Am Geriatr Soc 67:2650-2657, 2019.
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Project description:Transcription factors modulate gene expression by distinct, barely understood mechanisms. The crystal structure of a bacterial transcription subcomplex comprising the effector domain of factor PhoB, its target DNA and the ?4 domain of the RNA polymerase ?70 subunit supports the notion that a stronger grip on the promoter-factor complex results in an enhanced RNAP architecture.
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Project description:A new low-cost material with a polymeric base formed from sodium silicate was developed. The material presents a nanostructured, highly rich iron surface with a large phosphorus retention capacity and potential reuse as a crop fertilizer. In the present study, we demonstrate that iron is the element that acts as an adsorbent for phosphate, while the polymeric base functions exclusively as a support for iron. The iron is uniformly adsorbed on the surface of the material, forming nanostructures, which ensure that iron works similarly to nanoparticles in solution but avoid other problems, such as particle agglomeration or the difficulty of separating them after the removal process. Materials were characterised by SEM, EDS, N2 sorption, and image processing, and the effect of pH, ionic strength, and temperature was studied. Sorption kinetics were analysed using Boyd’s diffusion model, and adsorption equilibria were studied using several adsorption models. A maximum iron adsorption on the polymeric base of 23.9 ± 0.3 mg Fe∙g−1 was found, while maximum phosphorus adsorption was 366 ± 21 mg P∙g−1 Fe. Thus, phosphorus is recovered from the aqueous medium with an inexpensive material that has the potential to be used directly as a fertilizer.
| S-EPMC10097266 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The use of excess conventional Phosphorus (P) fertilizers to improve agricultural productivity, in order to meet constantly increasing global food demand, potentially causes surface and ground water pollution, waterway eutrophication, soil fertility depletion, and accumulation of toxic elements such as high concentration of selenium (Se), arsenic (As) in the soil. Quite a number of soil microorganisms are capable of solubilizing/mineralizing insoluble soil phosphate to release soluble P and making it available to plants. These microorganisms improve the growth and yield of a wide variety of crops. Thus, inoculating seeds/crops/soil with Phosphate Solubilizing Microorganisms (PSM) is a promising strategy to improve world food production without causing any environmental hazard. Despite their great significance in soil fertility improvement, phosphorus-solubilizing microorganisms have yet to replace conventional chemical fertilizers in commercial agriculture. A better understanding of recent developments in PSM functional diversity, colonizing ability, mode of actions and judicious application should facilitate their use as reliable components of sustainable agricultural systems. In this review, we discussed various soil microorganisms that have the ability to solubilize phosphorus and hence have the potential to be used as bio fertilizers. The mechanisms of inorganic phosphate solubilization by PSM and the mechanisms of organic phosphorus mineralization are highlighted together with some factors that determine the success of this technology. Finally we provide some indications that the use of PSM will promote sustainable agriculture and conclude that this technology is ready for commercial exploitation in various regions worldwide.
| S-EPMC5454063 | biostudies-literature
Project description:As a finite and non-renewable resource, phosphorus (P) is essential to all life and crucial for crop growth and food production. The boosted agricultural use and associated loss of P to the aquatic environment are increasing environmental pollution, harming ecosystems, and threatening future global food security. Thus, recovering and reusing P from water bodies is urgently needed to close the P cycle. As a natural, eco-friendly, and sustainable reclamation strategy, microalgae-based biological P recovery is considered a promising solution. However, the low P-accumulation capacity and P-removal efficiency of algal bioreactors restrict its application. Herein, it is demonstrated that manipulating genes involved in cellular P accumulation and signalling could triple the Chlamydomonas P-storage capacity to ~7% of dry biomass, which is the highest P concentration in plants to date. Furthermore, the engineered algae could recover P from wastewater almost three times faster than the unengineered one, which could be directly used as a P fertilizer. Thus, engineering genes involved in cellular P accumulation and signalling in microalgae could be a promising strategy to enhance P uptake and accumulation, which have the potential to accelerate the application of algae for P recovery from the water body and closing the P cycle.
| S-EPMC10281605 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The prion (infectious protein) concept has evolved with the discovery of new self-propagating protein states in organisms as diverse as mammals and fungi. The infectious agent of the mammalian transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE) has long been considered the prototypical prion, and recent cell-free propagation and biophysical analyses of TSE infectivity have now firmly established its prion credentials. Other disease-associated protein aggregates, such as some amyloids, can also have prion-like characteristics under certain experimental conditions. However, most amyloids appear to lack the natural transmissibility of TSE prions. One feature that distinguishes the latter from the former is the glycophosphatidylinositol membrane anchor on prion protein, the molecule that is corrupted in TSE diseases. The presence of this anchor profoundly affects TSE pathogenesis, which involves major membrane distortions in the brain, and may be a key reason for the greater neurovirulence of TSE prions relative to many other autocatalytic protein aggregates.
| S-EPMC2794486 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Visible-light-operated photoswitches are of growing interest in reversibly controlling molecular processes, enabling for example the precise spatiotemporal focusing of drug activity and manipulating the properties of materials. Therefore, many research efforts have been spent on seeking control over the (photo)physical properties of photoswitches, in particular the absorption maxima and the half-life. For photopharmacological applications, photoswitches should ideally be operated by visible light in at least one direction, and feature a metastable isomer with a half-life of 0.1-10 seconds. Here we present our efforts towards the engineering of the half-life of iminothioindoxyl (ITI) photoswitches, a recently discovered class of visible-light-responsive photochromes, whose applicability was hitherto limited by half-lives in the low millisecond range. Through the synthesis and characterization of a library of ITI photoswitches, we discovered variants with a substantially increased thermal stability, reaching half-lives of up to 0.2 seconds. Based on spectroscopic and computational analyses, we demonstrate how different substituent positions on the ITI molecule can be used to tune its photophysical properties independently to fit the desired application. Additionally, the unique reactivity of the ITI derivative that featured a perfluoro-aromatic ring and had the most long-lived metastable state was shown to be useful for labeling of nucleophilic functional groups. The present research thus paves the way for using ITI photoswitches in photopharmacology and chemical biology.
| S-EPMC11331343 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Phosphorus is an essential constituent of all living organisms but it is non-renewable and its natural reserves are fast depleting. Phosphorus discharged in wastewater could be sustainably reused by microalgae. Knowledge about cellular phosphorus dynamics in microalgae has been rapidly advancing and luxury phosphorus (poly-P) uptake phenomenon by microalgae is becoming the focus point for many research studies. Ultra-membrane treated landfill leachate was used as a nutrient medium for the growth of indigenous microalgal species with simultaneous removal of phosphorus (P-PO4 -3) and nitrogen (N-NH4 + and N-NO3). Different concentrations of phosphorus (15-100 mg. L-1 P-PO4 -3) was added to leachate. Highest nitrogen removal (69.03% N-NH4 +) was observed for 100 mg. L-1 P-PO4 -3 supplemented medium. P removal efficiency was 100% for all the tested P-PO4 -3 concentrations. Intracellular poly-P was detected by florescence microscopy. Microalgae can be grown and utilized for the sustainable recovery of P and N from landfill leachate.
| S-EPMC6962653 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundGrip strength is a popular and valuable measure in studies of physical functional capabilities in old age. The influence of historical trends and differential period-specific exposures can complicate the interpretation of biomarkers of aging and health and requires careful analysis and interpretation of aging, birth cohort, and period effects. This study evaluates the effects of aging, period, and cohort on grip strength in a population of adults and older adults.MethodsWe use more than 27 000 observations for individuals at least 50 years of age, born in approximately 1910-1960, from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing to examine a variety of multilevel and cross-classified modeling approaches to evaluate age, period, and cohort effects. Our results extended Hierarchical Age-Period-Cohort modeling and compared our results with a set of 9 submodels with explicit assumptions to determine the most reliable modeling approach.ResultsFindings suggest grip strength is primarily related to age, with minimal evidence of either period and/or cohort effects. Each year's increase in a person's age was associated with a 0.40-kg decrease in grip strength, though this decline differs by gender.ConclusionsWe conclude that as the population ages, grip strength declines at a systematic and predictable rate equal to -0.40 kg per year (approximately -0.50 kg for men and -0.30 kg for women) in residents of England aged 50 and older. Age effects were predominant and most consistent across methodologies. While there was some evidence for cohort effects, such effects were minimal and therefore indicative that grip strength is a consistent physiological biomarker of aging.
| S-EPMC9255688 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Coccolithophore microalgae, such as Emiliania huxleyi (EHUX) and Chrysotila pseudoroscoffensis (CP), are composed of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and contain bioactive compounds that can be explored to produce sustainable food packaging. In this study, for the first time, these microalgae were incorporated as fillers in starch-based films, envisioning the development of biodegradable and bioactive materials for food packaging applications. The films were obtained by solvent casting using different proportions of the filler (2.5, 5, 10, and 20%, w/w). For comparison, commercial CaCO3, used as filler in the plastic industry, was also tested. The incorporation of CaCO3 and microalgae (EHUX or CP) made the films significantly less rigid, decreasing Young's modulus up to 4.7-fold. Moreover, the incorporation of microalgae hydrophobic compounds as lipids turned the surface hydrophobic (water contact angles > 90°). Contrary to what was observed with commercial CaCO3, the films prepared with microalgae exhibited antioxidant activity, increasing from 0.9% (control) up to 60.4% (EHUX 20%) of ABTS radical inhibition. Overall, the introduction of microalgae biomass improved hydrophobicity and antioxidant capacity of starch-based films. These findings should be considered for further research using coccolithophores to produce active and sustainable food packaging material.
| S-EPMC9914559 | biostudies-literature