Burke B, Fan G, Wasuwanich P, Moore EB, Furst AL. Self-Assembled Nanocoatings Protect Microbial Fertilizers for Climate-Resilient Agriculture.
JACS Au 2023;
3:2973-2980. [PMID:
38034965 PMCID:
PMC10685410 DOI:
10.1021/jacsau.3c00426]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2023] [Revised: 10/23/2023] [Accepted: 10/24/2023] [Indexed: 12/02/2023]
Abstract
Chemical fertilizers have been crucial for sustaining the current global population by supplementing overused farmland to support consistent food production, but their use is unsustainable. Pseudomonas chlororaphis is a nitrogen-fixing bacterium that could be used as a fertilizer replacement, but this microbe is delicate. It is sensitive to stressors, such as freeze-drying and high temperatures. Here, we demonstrate protection of P. chlororaphis from freeze-drying, high temperatures (50 oC), and high humidity using self-assembling metal-phenolic network (MPN) coatings. The composition of the MPN is found to significantly impact its protective efficacy, and with optimized compositions, no viability loss is observed for MPN-coated microbes under conditions where uncoated cells do not survive. Further, we demonstrate that MPN-coated microbes improve germination of seeds by 150% as compared to those treated with fresh P. chlororaphis. Taken together, these results demonstrate the protective capabilities of MPNs against environmental stressors and represent a critical step towards enabling the production and storage of delicate microbes under nonideal conditions.
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