Efficient Design Strategy for Whole-Cell and Cell-Free Biosensors based on Engineered Riboswitches

Abstract

We have applied dual genetic selection to design a bacterial riboswitch with improved sensitivity by employing a high-affinity heterologous thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP) aptamer and modified selection conditions in Escherichia coli. The cells transformed with the engineered TPP riboswitches were characterized as whole-cell biosensors. The riboswitches were further studied in cell-free translation systems where they exhibited characteristics similar to those in vivo and a shorter response time for analysis. The flexibility of the riboswitch-based biosensors to accommodate different reporter genes was also demonstrated. Tuning of biosensor characteristics in vivo enables efficient development of aptamer-based whole-cell and cell-free biosensors.     

华根霉全细胞脂肪酶催化合成生物柴油

比较了5种不同商品化脂肪酶和自制的华根霉CCTCCM201021全细胞脂肪酶(RCL)催化油脂合成生物柴油的转化效果,结果表明,RCL能有效应用于无溶剂体系催化合成生物柴油.在无溶剂体系中对该酶催化生物柴油的转酯化反应工艺进行优化,考察了甲醇用量、体系含水量、酶的添加量和反应温度对生物柴油收率的影响,使生物柴油最终收率大于86.0%.在有机溶剂体系中选择不同有机溶剂作为助溶剂进行转酯化反应,发现logP值在4.0～4.5的有机溶剂具有较好的转化效果.其中以正庚烷为助溶剂的转酯化反应具有最高的生物柴油收率86.7%.在无溶剂体系中RCL催化转化油酸和模拟高酸价油脂合成脂肪酸甲酯的研究表明,该酶具有很好的催化合成生物柴油的潜力.     

Hydrogen Production from Methanol Using Corona Discharges

Hydrogen production at room temperature from liquid methanol has been conducted using corona discharge.The content of water in methanol solution has a significant effect on this production.When water concentration increases from 1.0% to 16.7,the methanol conversion rate changes from 0.196 to 0.284 mol/h.An important finding in this investigation is the formation of ethylene glycol as a major by-product.The yield of ethylene glycol is ranged from 0.0045 to 0.0075 mol/h based on the water content.     

Biological Hydrogen Production Using Chloroform-treated Methanogenic Granules

In fermentative hydrogen production, the low-hydrogen-producing bacteria retention rate limits the suspended growth reactor productivity because of the long hydraulic retention time (HRT) required to maintain adequate bacteria population. Traditional bacteria immobilization methods such as calcium alginate entrapment have many application limitations in hydrogen fermentation, including limited duration time, bacteria leakage, cost, and so on. The use of chloroform-treated anaerobic granular sludge as immobilized hydrogen-producing bacteria in an immobilized hydrogen culture may be able to overcome the limitations of traditional immobilization methods. This paper reports the findings on the performance of fed-batch cultures and continuous cultures inoculated with chloroform-treated granules. The chloroform-treated granules were able to be reused over four fed-batch cultures, with pH adjustment. The upflow reactor packed with chloroform-treated granules was studied, and the HRT of the upflow reactor was found to be as low as 4 h without any decrease in hydrogen production yield. Initial pH and glucose concentration of the culture medium significantly influenced the performance of the reactor. The optimum initial pH of the culture medium was neutral, and the optimum glucose concentration of the culture medium was below 20 g chemical oxygen demand/L at HRT 4 h. This study also investigated the possibility of integrating immobilized hydrogen fermentation using chloroform-treated granules with immobilized methane production using untreated granular sludge. The results showed that the integrated batch cultures produced 1.01 mol hydrogen and 2 mol methane per mol glucose. Treating the methanogenic granules with chloroform and then using the treated granules as immobilized hydrogen-producing sludge demonstrated advantages over other immobilization methods because the treated granules provide hydrogen-producing bacteria with a protective niche, a long duration of an active culture, and excellent settling velocity. This integrated two-stage design for immobilized hydrogen fermentation and methane production offers a promising approach for modifying current anaerobic wastewater treatment processes to harvest hydrogen from the existing systems.     

甲烷氧化菌利用甲烷生产聚羟基脂肪酸的研究进展

化学合成塑料主要来自于不可再生的化石能源,化学合成塑料的大量使用既消耗了大量能源物质,也带来了严重的环境问题。而生物合成的高分子化合物聚羟基脂肪酸,具有与合成塑料相似的物理性质,生产原料具有可再生性,同时在环境能快速降解,结构多样可以满足不同用途等多种优点,成为合成塑料最佳的替代品。甲烷氧化菌能以甲烷为唯一碳源和能源物质生长,并在细胞内合成大分子聚羟基脂肪酸。利用甲烷氧化菌转化甲烷合成聚羟基脂肪酸不仅可以大幅降低生产成本,同时也减少了温室气体的排放。本文就甲烷氧化菌合成聚羟基脂肪酸的生物代谢途径,甲烷为原料生产聚羟基脂肪酸的方法及优缺点等方面进行了分析。     

Direct Synthesis of Hydrogen Peroxide from Hydrogen and Oxygen Using Tailored Pd Nanocatalysts: A Review of Recent Findings

Direct synthesis of hydrogen peroxide from hydrogen and oxygen is being actively studied as an alternative to the current manufacturing process. The direct synthesis route has not reached the point of commercialization because of low yields, but significant effort is being spent on enhancing the productivity. With advances in computational capacity, simulation studies based on DFT calculations now offer directions for catalyst improvement, but such modifications can only be realized through the application of nanoparticle synthesis techniques that allow for nanocrystal morphology and size control and unique immobilization. To date, there have only been a small number of studies on such nanoparticles with size and crystallographic homogeneity for the direct hydrogen peroxide synthesis. According to our knowledge no other group has systematically investigated application of nanoparticles in direct synthesis of hydrogen peroxide, and thus included in this review are primarily previous studies conducted by our group. In this review, we discuss the utilization of nanotechnology for the synthesis of Pd catalysts and its effect on the direct synthesis of hydrogen peroxide, and we suggest a direction for future studies.     

Production of Modified Starch Using System Hydrogen Peroxide-Thiourea Dioxide

A new method for producing oxidized starches using hydrogen peroxide and thiourea dioxide is proposed. It is shown that this method makes it possible to broadly control the number of functional groups arising in modified starch as well as the viscosity of the paste made from modified starch. This is achieved by changing the molar ratio of thiourea dioxide and hydrogen peroxide. The oxidative modification of starch is carried out under mild conditions and proceeds at high speed.

     

Improvement of the Production Efficiency of l-(+)-Tartaric Acid by Heterogeneous Whole-Cell Bioconversion

An Escherichia coli-engineered bacterium with cis-epoxysuccinate hydrolase (ESH) activity was used to catalyze the stereospecific hydrolysis of cis-epoxysuccinic acid to l-(+)-tartaric acid. The effect of the substrate composition on the production efficiency of l-(+)-tartaric acid was investigated. Based on the sodium-type homogeneous substrate system, a heterogeneous substrate system, composed of 1.2 M sodium-type substrate and 1.8 M calcium-type substrate, was designed to improve ESH catalytic efficiency. After process optimization, a catalytic efficiency of 9.37?×?10^?3 g U^?1 h^?1 was obtained with fed-batch mode in the heterogeneous substrate system, about a twofold increase compared to the traditional bioconversion process with Nocardia tartaricans cells. The scale-up tests were carried out in a 15-m³ stirred tank reactor, which indicated that the heterogeneous substrate system had great application prospect for the l-(+)-tartaric acid industrial production.     

TiO2光催化分解水制氢研究进展

综述了近几年改善TiO2光催化分解水制氢的方法措施.向水中添加供电子物质可减少光生电子与空穴的复合,添加碳酸盐或碘化物有利于光生电子与空穴分离;TiO2表面沉积适量的金属颗粒也有利于实现电子和空穴分离,但沉积太多的金属颗粒不但降低TiO2对光的吸收而且还可能成为光生电荷复合的中心;掺杂合适的金属离子通过形成杂质能级可把TiO2的吸光范围至拓宽可见光,掺杂非金属元素使TiO2的带隙(Eg)变窄,从而使TiO2的吸光红移更明显,但掺杂离子有可能成为光生电荷复合的中心;染料敏化或半导体复合有利于实现电荷分离,提高光电转换效率.将多种修饰方法有机结合起来制取氢足目前的一个研究方向,最后分析了未来的研究重点.     

Generation of Hydrogen from Photolysis of Organic Acids by Photosynthetic Bacteria

Photodccomposition of ten kinds of organic acids by Rhodopseudomonas palustris for producing hydrogen has been investigated,By using acctate as hydrogen donor,dynamics of hydrogen production and cell growth has been determined;the influences of acetate concentration,temperature,light intensity and the effects of the ineraction among metal ions (Fe^3 ,Ni^ ),acctate and glutamatc in aqueous solution on hydrogen production have been examined for optimizing the conditions of H2 generation .The results show that H2 production is partially correlated with cell growth ;Ni^2 inhibits hydrogen production,but enhances cell growth; Fe^3 promotes hydrogen production evidcntly,The highest rate of H2 production is 22.1 mL L^-1h^-1 under the conditions of 35-37℃,6000-8000lx,30 mmolL^-1 of acetate, 9mmolL^-1 of glutamate, and 50μmolL^-1 of Fe^3 .     

Hydrogen Production by Steam Reforming of Ethanol: A Two Step Process

A two-layer fixed-bed catalytic reactor for hydrogen production by steam reforming of ethanol is proposed. In this reactor ethanol is first converted to acetaldehyde over a Cu-based catalyst and then acetaldehyde is converted to a hydrogen-rich mixture over a Ni-based catalyst. It is shown that the use of such type of reactor prevents coke formation and provides hydrogen yields closed to equilibrium.     

Evaluation of Lighting Systems,Carbon Sources,and Bacteria Cultures on Photofermentative Hydrogen Production

Fluorescent and incandescent lighting systems were applied for batch photofermentative hydrogen production by four purple non-sulfur photosynthetic bacteria (PNSB). The hydrogen production efficiency of Rhodopseudomonas palustris, Rhodobacter sphaeroides, Rhodobacter capsulatus, and Rhodospirillum rubrum was evaluated using different carbon sources (acetate, butyrate, lactate, and malate). Incandescent light was found to be more effective for bacteria cell growth and hydrogen production. It was observed that PNSB followed substrate selection criteria for hydrogen production. Only R. palustris was able to produce hydrogen using most carbon sources. Cell density was almost constant, but cell growth rate and hydrogen production were significantly varied under the different lighting systems. The kinetics study suggested that initial substrate concentration had a positive correlation with lag phase duration. Among the PNSB, R. palustris grew faster and had higher hydrogen yields of 1.58, 4.92, and 2.57 mol H₂/mol using acetate, butyrate, and lactate, respectively. In the integrative approach with dark fermentation effluents rich in organic acids, R. palustris should be enriched in the phototrophic microbial consortium of the continuous hydrogen production system.     

Methane Pyrolysis for Hydrogen Production: Specific Features of Using Molten Metals

Russian Journal of Applied Chemistry - Published data on noncatalytic pyrolysis of natural gas in molten metals are analyzed. The most illustrative results obtained in the past two decades are...     

Hydrogen Production by Catalytic Reforming of Liquid Hydrocarbons

In this review, we are reporting the catalytic reforming of liquid hydrocarbon fuels carried out in our research group, covering the catalytic reforming of iso-octane and toluene as surrogate of gasoline, gasoline fuel processor system and steam reforming of n-hexadecane and decahydronaphthalene, main constituents of diesel. The commercial ICI reforming catalyst is prone to be poisoned by sulfur contained in iso-octane. We investigated various supported transition metal formulations and developed Ni/Fe/MgO/Al₂O₃ (KIST-5) catalyst with prolonged catalytic stability (>760 h), higher activity and sulfur tolerance ability over commercial ICI and HT catalysts for ATR reaction of iso-octane. We found that the concentration of CO can be reduced to <1,800 ppm by the gasoline fuel processor system charged with KIST-5 reforming catalyst, commercial HTS catalyst and KIST Pt–Ni/CeO₂ LTS catalyst. The addition of Rh metal to spc-Ni/MgAl catalyst as promoter was found to be very effective in inhibiting the deactivation of spc-Ni/MgAl catalyst by sintering of reduced Ni metal at high temperature during steam reforming of n-hexadecane. A 0.3 wt% Rh loading on spc-Ni/MgAl catalyst was optimized to have the best performance for steam reforming of n-hexadecane among the prepared catalysts. The addition of Rh to spc-Ni/MgAl catalyst also restricted the deactivation of the catalyst due to carbon formation at high reaction temperature. In view point of prolonged stability and higher activity, these developed reforming catalysts have a good scope in the reforming process of gasoline and diesel for hydrogen station and fuel processor system applications.     

Hydrogen Production from Methane Decomposition Using a Mobile and Elongating Arc Plasma Reactor

Plasma Chemistry and Plasma Processing - Hydrogen and solid carbon were produced through methane decomposition in a plasma reactor with a parallel set of screw type helix and rod-like electrodes....     

A Review of Microdialysis Sampling Systems

The most important aspects of microdialysis are a theoretical understanding of the process, the microdialysis membrane and the design of the microdialysis probe including the inner cannula dimensions. Several efforts have been made to theoretically account for the processes that take place during microdialysis. These have been employed to develop optimal sampling conditions so as to increase the applicability of the technique for in situ sampling and as a sample clean-up technique prior to chromatography. On the occasion of Prof. Lo Gorton’s 60th birthday, this review highlights the challenge presented by low analyte recoveries that is the major bottleneck in the wider use of microdialysis. The discussion concludes by considering how to increase analyte recovery through a multiple probe approach or by an increase in recovery in the light of the advantages of nanotechnology. Both approaches could impact on the use of microdialysis as a sampling and sample clean-up technique for liquid chromatography.     

A Review on Optimization Production and Upgrading Biogas Through CO2 Removal Using Various Techniques

Biogas from anaerobic digestion of organic materials is a renewable energy resource that consists mainly of CH₄ and CO₂. Trace components that are often present in biogas are water vapor, hydrogen sulfide, siloxanes, hydrocarbons, ammonia, oxygen, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen. Considering the biogas is a clean and renewable form of energy that could well substitute the conventional source of energy (fossil fuels), the optimization of this type of energy becomes substantial. Various optimization techniques in biogas production process had been developed, including pretreatment, biotechnological approaches, co-digestion as well as the use of serial digester. For some application, the certain purity degree of biogas is needed. The presence of CO₂ and other trace components in biogas could affect engine performance adversely. Reducing CO₂ content will significantly upgrade the quality of biogas and enhancing the calorific value. Upgrading is generally performed in order to meet the standards for use as vehicle fuel or for injection in the natural gas grid. Different methods for biogas upgrading are used. They differ in functioning, the necessary quality conditions of the incoming gas, and the efficiency. Biogas can be purified from CO₂ using pressure swing adsorption, membrane separation, physical or chemical CO₂ absorption. This paper reviews the various techniques, which could be used to optimize the biogas production as well as to upgrade the biogas quality.