Project description:<p><strong>INTRODUCTION:</strong> The extraction solvent mixtures were optimized for untargeted metabolomics analysis of microbial communities from two laboratory scale activated sludge reactors performing enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR).</p><p><strong>OBJECTIVE:</strong> To develop a robust and simple analytical protocol to analyse microbial metabolomics from EBPR bioreactors.</p><p><strong>METHODS:</strong> Extra- and intra-cellular metabolites were extracted using five methods and analysed by ultraperformance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS).</p><p><strong>RESULTS:</strong> The optimal extraction method was biomass specific and methanol:water (1:1 v/v) and methanol:chloroform:water (2:2:1 v/v) were chosen, respectively, for each of the two different bioreactors.</p><p><strong>CONCLUSION:</strong> Our approach provides direct surveys of the metabolic state of PAO-enriched EBPR communities, showing that extraction methods should be carefully tailored to the microbial community under study</p>
Project description:In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, glycogen and trehalose are important reserve carbohydrates that accumulate under nutrient limitation in batch cultures. An inherent draw-back of batch studies is that specific growth rate and substrate and product concentrations are variable over time and between cultures. The aim of this present study was to identify the nutritional requirements associated with high accumulation of reserve carbohydrates at a fixed specific growth rate (0.10 h-1) in anaerobic chemostat cultures that were limited by one of five different nutrients (carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus or zinc). Reserve carbohydrates accumulation is not a general response to nutrient limitation. Over the conditions tested, accumulation occurs essentially under nitrogen (and to a lesser extent carbon) limited conditions. This was confirmed by the transcriptional profile of the genes involved in trehalose biosynthesis. We show that the transcriptional induction of both glycogen and trehalose biosynthesis genes was to a large extent driven by the regulator Msn2/4. However, the main regulatory control of glycogen biosynthesis was post-translational. Under nitrogen limitation, the ratio of glycogen synthase over glycogen phosphorylase increased up to eight-fold, thus enabling an increased flux towards glycogen biosynthesis. Experiment Overall Design: We studied this in anaerobic chemostat cultures at a dilution rate of 0.10 h-1 where growth was limited by five different nutrients (carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus or zinc limitations). In addition, we studied the expression of these pathways at transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels and assessed the role of Msn2/4 in mediating transcriptional induction of glycogen and trehalose genes in the absence of stress.
Project description:Characterization of microbial communities at the genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic levels, with a special interest on lipid accumulating bacterial populations, which are naturally enriched in biological wastewater treatment systems and may be harnessed for the conversion of mixed lipid substrates (wastewater) into biodiesel. The project aims to elucidate the genetic blueprints and the functional relevance of specific populations within the community. It focuses on within-population genetic and functional heterogeneity, trying to understand how fine-scale variations contribute to differing lipid accumulating phenotypes. Insights from this project will contribute to the understanding the functioning of microbial ecosystems, and improve optimization and modeling strategies for current and future biological wastewater treatment processes. This project contains datasets derived from the same biological wastewater treatment plant. The data includes metagenomes, metatranscriptomes, metaproteomes and organisms isolated in pure cultures. Characterization of microbial communities at the genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic levels, with a special interest on lipid accumulating bacterial populations, which are naturally enriched in biological wastewater treatment systems and may be harnessed for the conversion of mixed lipid substrates (wastewater) into biodiesel. The project aims to elucidate the genetic blueprints and the functional relevance of specific populations within the community. It focuses on within-population genetic and functional heterogeneity, trying to understand how fine-scale variations contribute to differing lipid accumulating phenotypes. Insights from this project will contribute to the understanding the functioning of microbial ecosystems, and improve optimization and modeling strategies for current and future biological wastewater treatment processes. This project contains datasets derived from the same biological wastewater treatment plant. The data includes metagenomes, metatranscriptomes, metaproteomes and organisms isolated in pure cultures.
Project description:Using the highly sensitive miRNA array, we screened 3100 microRNAs abundant in the high phosphorus-treated endothelial cells derived exosome and we explored the functions of these miRNAs.
Project description:Iron (Fe) and phosphorus (P) are essential nutrients with close geochemical association. They exist at low concentrations in surface waters and may be co-limiting resources for phytoplankton growth. However, the adaptive strategies of photosynthetic organisms to Fe/P co-limitation remain largely unknown. Here, we show that phosphorus deficiency increases the growth of Fe-limited cyanobacteria through a PhoB-mediated regulatory network. In addition to its well-recognized role in controlling phosphate homeostasis, PhoB regulates key metabolic processes crucial for Fe-limited cyanobacteria, including ROS detoxification and Fe uptake. Transcript abundances of PhoB-targeted genes are enriched in samples from the P-deplete ocean, and a conserved PhoB binding site is widely present in the promoters of the targets, suggesting that the strategy we discovered may be highly conserved. Our findings provide important molecular insights into the response of cyanobacteria to simultaneous Fe/P nutrient limitation and help in understanding how nutrient availability affects primary productivity in aquatic environments.