Tuning the efficacy of decellularized apple by coating with alginate/gelatin to behave as a bioscaffold for cultured meat production

Substantial efforts are underway to tackle the current challenges of sustainability and environmental impacts linked to orthodox animal agriculture. This had led to advancement in food innovation guiding the fabrication of edible scaffolds based cultured meat. This current research work aims to develop and validate a new approach in fabricating a 3D porous scaffold of decellularized apple coated with a polymer mixture of gelatin/alginate for cultivated meat production. The fabricated noncoated (A) and coated (CA) 3D scaffolds presented different ratios of pore sizes with the medium-sized pores (100-250 µm) being higher in the case of CA. The water absorption capacity of CA (∼64 %) was almost two folds compared to A (∼31 %) with delayed digestion in the presence of gastric simulated juice with or without pepsin. Both the scaffolds showed the capability to adhere and proliferate muscle satellite cells as single cell culture and muscle satellite along with NIH/3T3 fibroblast cells as co-culture. However, the CA scaffolds showed enhanced capability to adhere and proliferate the two cell lines on its surface compared to A. This work demonstrates an efficient way to fabricate decellularized plant scaffolds with high potential to be used in the production of cultured meat for the food industry.

Harnessing the potential of microalgae-bacteria interaction for eco-friendly wastewater treatment: A review on new strategies involving machine learning and artificial intelligence

In the pursuit of effective wastewater treatment and biomass generation, the symbiotic relationship between microalgae and bacteria emerges as a promising avenue. This analysis delves into recent advancements concerning the utilization of microalgae-bacteria consortia for wastewater treatment and biomass production. It examines multiple facets of this symbiosis, encompassing the judicious selection of suitable strains, optimal culture conditions, appropriate media, and operational parameters. Moreover, the exploration extends to contrasting closed and open bioreactor systems for fostering microalgae-bacteria consortia, elucidating the inherent merits and constraints of each methodology. Notably, the untapped potential of co-cultivation with diverse microorganisms, including yeast, fungi, and various microalgae species, to augment biomass output. In this context, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) stand out as transformative catalysts. By addressing intricate challenges in wastewater treatment and microalgae-bacteria symbiosis, AI and ML foster innovative technological solutions. These cutting-edge technologies play a pivotal role in optimizing wastewater treatment processes, enhancing biomass yield, and facilitating real-time monitoring. The synergistic integration of AI and ML instills a novel dimension, propelling the fields towards sustainable solutions. As AI and ML become integral tools in wastewater treatment and symbiotic microorganism cultivation, novel strategies emerge that harness their potential to overcome intricate challenges and revolutionize the domain.

A critical insight into occurrence and fate of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and their green remediation approaches

Over the last century, the tremendous growth in industrial activities particularly in the sectors of pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals and the reckless application of fertilizers and insecticides has raised the contamination of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) tremendously. For more than a decade, the main focus of environmental experts is to come up with management approaches for the clean-up of sites polluted with PAHs. These are ubiquitous in nature i.e., widely distributed in ecosystem ranging from soil, air and marine water. Most of the PAHs possess immunotoxicity, carcinogenicity and genotoxicity. Being highly soluble in lipids, they are readily absorbed into the mammalian gastro intestinal tract. They are widely distributed with marked tendency of getting localized into body fat in varied tissues. Several remediation technologies have been tested for the removal of these environmental contaminants, particularly bioremediation has turned out to be a hope as the safest and cost-effective option. Therefore, this review first discusses various sources of PAHs, their effect on human health and interactions of PAHs with soils and sediments. In this review, a holistic insight of current scenario of existing remediation technologies and how they can be improvised along with the hindrances in the path of these technologies are properly addressed.

Microalgae-based wastewater treatment: Mechanisms, challenges, recent advances, and future prospects

The rapid expansion of both the global economy and the human population has led to a shortage of water resources suitable for direct human consumption. As a result, water remediation will inexorably become the primary focus on a global scale. Microalgae can be grown in various types of wastewaters (WW). They have a high potential to remove contaminants from the effluents of industries and urban areas. This review focuses on recent advances on WW remediation through microalgae cultivation. Attention has already been paid to microalgae-based wastewater treatment (WWT) due to its low energy requirements, the strong ability of microalgae to thrive under diverse environmental conditions, and the potential to transform WW nutrients into high-value compounds. It turned out that microalgae-based WWT is an economical and sustainable solution. Moreover, different types of toxins are removed by microalgae through biosorption, bioaccumulation, and biodegradation processes. Examples are toxins from agricultural runoffs and textile and pharmaceutical industrial effluents. Microalgae have the potential to mitigate carbon dioxide and make use of the micronutrients that are present in the effluents. This review paper highlights the application of microalgae in WW remediation and the remediation of diverse types of pollutants commonly present in WW through different mechanisms, simultaneous resource recovery, and efficient microalgae-based co-culturing systems along with bottlenecks and prospects.

The Caco-2 Model: Modifications and enhancements to improve efficiency and predictive performance

The Caco-2 cell model has been widely used to assess the permeability of drug candidates. It has provided a high throughput in vitro platform, functionally resembling the enterocytes. Since the oral route is the most preferred for drug administration, the Caco-2 cell model acts as a very important tool to elucidate the oral "druggability" of a molecule by providing a fairly reliable estimate of its permeability through the intestinal membrane. Despite its shortcomings (the lack of a mucus layer, long cultivation period, inter-lab variability, and differences in expression of enzymes, transporters, and tight junction complexes) it remains heavily used due to its reliability, predictive performance, and wide acceptance. Various modifications have been made: co-culturing with other intestinal cells, applying biosimilar mucus, reducing culturing time, combining Caco-2 monolayer with the dissolution apparatus, enhancing protein expression, and redesigning the sampling apparatus. These modifications are intended to overcome some of the shortcomings of the Caco-2 model in order to make its use easier, quicker, economical, and more representative of the intestine. The aim of this review is to discuss such modifications to enhance this model's utility, predictive performance, and reproducibility.

Production of a Class IIb Bacteriocin with Broad-spectrum Antimicrobial Activity in Lactiplantibacillus plantarum RUB1

Bacteriocins produced by lactic acid bacteria have potential use as natural food preservatives, which may alleviate current problems associated with the overuse of antibiotics and emerging multi-drug-resistant microbes. In this work, Lactiplantibacillus plantarum RUB1 was found to produce a class IIb bacteriocin with strong antibacterial activity. Except for plnXY encoding putative proteins, L. plantarum RUB1 contains most genes in five operons (plnABCD, plnGHSTUVW, plnMNOP, plnIEF, and plnRLJK) related to bacteriocin synthesis. Adding low (100 and 500 ng/mL) and medium (1 μg/mL) concentrations of PlnA to broth promoted bacteriocin production and upregulated bacteriocin gene plnA, while high concentrations (50 and 200 μg/mL) inhibited expression of these genes. Co-culturing L. plantarum RUB1 with Enterococcus hirae 1003, Enterococcus hirae LWS, Limosilactobacillus fermentum RC4, L. plantarum B6, and even Listeria monocytogenes ATCC 19111 and Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 6538 enhanced bacteriocin activity and expression of bacteriocin-related genes. This study verifies that PlnA can indeed upregulate the expression of bacteriocin genes, and also bacteriocin production can be induced by co-culture with some specific bacteria or their cell-free supernatants. Bacteriocin production by L. plantarum RUB1 is mediated by a quorum sensing mechanism, directly influenced by autoinducing peptide or specific strains. The findings provide new methods and insight into bacteriocin production mechanisms.

Co-culturing experiments reveal the uptake of myo-inositol phosphate synthase (EC 5.5.1.4) in an inositol auxotroph of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

BACKGROUND

Myo-Inositol Phosphate Synthase (MIP) catalyzes the conversion of glucose 6- phosphate into inositol phosphate, an essential nutrient and cell signaling molecule. Data obtained, first in bovine brain and later in plants, established MIP expression in organelles and in extracellular environments. A physiological role for secreted MIP has remained elusive since its first detection in intercellular space. To provide further insight into the role of MIP in intercellular milieus, we tested the hypothesis that MIP may function as a growth factor, synthesizing inositol phosphate in intercellular locations requiring, but lacking ability to produce or transport adequate quantities of the cell-cell communicator. This idea was experimentally challenged, utilizing a Saccharomyces cerevisiae inositol auxotroph with no MIP enzyme, permeable membranes with a 0.4 µm pore size, and cellular supernatants as external sources of inositol isolated from S. cerevisiae cells containing either wild-type enzyme (Wt-MIP), no MIP enzyme, auxotroph (Aux), or a green fluorescent protein (GFP) tagged reporter enzyme (MIP- GFP) in co- culturing experiments.

RESULTS

Resulting cell densities and microscopic studies with corroborating biochemical and molecular analyses, documented sustained growth of Aux cells in cellular supernatant, concomitant with the uptakeof MIP, detected as MIP-GFP reporter enzyme. These findings revealed previously unknown functions, suggesting that the enzyme can: (1) move into and out of intercellular space, (2) traverse cell walls, and (3) act as a growth factor to promote cellular proliferation of an inositol requiring cell.

CONCLUSIONS

Co-culturing experiments, designed to test a probable function for MIP secreted in extracellular vesicles, uncovered previously unknown functions for the enzyme and advanced current knowledge concerning spatial control of inositol phosphate biosynthesis. Most importantly, resulting data identified an extracellular vesicle (a non-viral vector) that is capable of synthesizing and transporting inositol phosphate, a biological activity that can be used to enhance specificity of current inositol phosphate therapeutics.

NG-27 and Bacillus nealsonii PN-11

The Application of a combination of enzymes is the best alternative to reduce the use of chemicals in the paper industry. Bacillus sp. NG-27 and Bacillus nealsonii PN-11 are known to produce thermoalkali stable xylanse (X) and mannanase (M) respectively having potential for pulp biobleaching. The Present study, reports the production of a mixture of X + M by co-culturing of strains in SSF and standardizing its application for pulp biobleaching. Production of enzymes by co-cultivation in SSF was optimized by statistical methods. Substantial increase in the yield of enzymes; 3.61 fold of xylanase and 37.71 fold of mannanase was achieved. Application of enzyme cocktail for pulp biobleaching resulted in a 45.64% reduction of kappa number with 55 IU g^-1odp of enzyme dose (xylanase:mannanase; 3:1) at pH 8.0 in 1h at 65 °C along with significant increase in brightness (11%) and whiteness (75%). The Same quality of paper as made up from chemical treated pulp can be made from enzyme-treated pulp with 30% less use of chlorine. Structural analysis of enzyme-treated pulp showed dissolution of hemicellulose as indicated by pores, cracks and increased roughness all over the surface. Cocktail of X + M produced economically in a single fermentation having all the requisite characteristics for pulp biobleaching is a highly suitable candidate for application in the pulp and paper industry.

Chicken Gut Microbiome and Human Health: Past Scenarios, Current Perspectives, and Futuristic Applications

Sustainable poultry practices are needed to maintain an adequate supply of poultry products to the increasing human population without compromising human wellbeing. In order to achieve the understanding of the core microbiome that assumes an imperative role in digestion, absorption, and assimilation of feed as well as restrict the growth of pathogenic strains, a proper meta-data survey is required. The dysbiosis of the core microbiome or any external infection in chickens leads to huge losses in the poultry production worldwide. Along with this, the consumption of infected meat also impacts on human health as chicken meat is a regular staple in many diets as a vital source of protein. To tackle these losses, sub-therapeutic doses of antibiotics are being used as a feed additive along with other conventional approaches including selective breeding and modulation in feed composition. Altogether, these conventional approaches have improved the yield and quality of poultry products, however, the use of antibiotics encompasses the risk of developing multi-drug resistant pathogenic strains that can be harmful to human beings. Thus, there is an urgent need to understand the chicken microbiome in order to modulate chicken gut microbiome and provide alternatives to the conventional methods. Although there is now emerging literature available on some of these important microbiome aspects, in this article, we have analysed the relevant recent developments in understanding the chicken gut microbiome including the establishment of integrated gene catalogue for chicken microbiome. We have also focussed on novel strategies for the development of a chicken microbial library that can be used to develop novel microbial consortia as novel probiotics to improve the poultry meat production without compromising human health. Thus, it can be an alternative and advanced step compared to other conventional approaches to improve the gut milieu and pathogen-mediated loss in the poultry industry.

Bacterial cellulose/hyaluronic acid nanocomposites production through co-culturing Gluconacetobacter hansenii and Lactococcus lactis in a two-vessel circulating system

Bacterial cellulose (BC) based composites have been widely studied in the biomedical field. In this study, the BC/HA (hyaluronic acid) nanocomposites in the pellicle form were directly produced through co-culturing Gluconacetobacter hansenii ATCC 23769 and Lactococcus lactis APJ3 in a novel two-vessel circulating system. The concentration of HA secreted by L. lactis was controlled through adjusting the constant feed rate of glucose. The dynamic growth of the strains revealed that L. lactis was mainly growing within 48 h while G. hansenii started to grow after 48 h. XRD analysis indicated the presence of HA would not affect the crystallinity of cellulose but increase the crystalline sizes. The FESEM images showed that more ribbons within the width of 20-40 nm and larger ribbons between 180 and 360 nm were observed in BC/HA. The strain at break and the water holding capacity of BC/HA increased with the concentration of HA.

Co-culturing on dry filter paper significantly increased the efficiency of Agrobacterium-mediated transformations of maize immature embryos

In the Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformations of maize immature embryos (IEs), the common co-culturing media used are MS or N6-based (MC). Here, we used a novel co-culturing method in which maize 'Qi319' IEs inoculated with Agrobacterium-harboring target vector were placed on dry filter paper (DC) in a petri dish. To compare the effects of the DC and MC co-culturing methods on transformation efficiency, we designed three experiments: (1) A. tumefaciens strain AGL1 independently carrying two plasmids, pXQD12 and pXQD70; (2) two A. tumefaciens strains, AGL1 and EHA105, carrying pXQD12; and (3) strains AGL1 and EHA105 each independently inoculated with pXQD12 and pXQD70 for different infiltration periods, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 min. We used A. tumefaciens to inoculate IEs derived from maize ears 9-15 d after pollination, and then IEs were placed in petri dishes for co-culturing. The DC treatment significantly increased the percentage of IEs expressing green fluorescence protein (%GFP), indicating positive transformants. DC-treated IEs had ~ 3 to 4 times the %GFP compared with MC-treated IEs at 8 d after inoculation (3 d co-culture and 5 d restoration). The average regeneration frequency (%GFP positive regenerated calli of infected IEs) and stable transformation frequency (%GFP positive T₀ plants of infected IEs) significantly increased with the DC treatment. Thus, the DC method may be used to develop a more efficient Agrobacterium-mediated transformation method for maize IEs.

Ultraviolet (IUV) and mass spectrometry (IMS) imaging for the deconvolution of microbial interactions

Background

Spatial localization of natural products or proteins during microbial interactions can help to identify new antimicrobials both as offensive or defensive agents. Visible spatial interactions have been used for decades to enhance Drug Discovery processes both in industry and academia.

Results

Herein we describe an automated micro-extraction methodology, that coupled with the previously described HPLC-Studio 2.0 software and the new development, the MASS-Studio 1.0 software, can combine multiple chemical analyses to generate ultraviolet (UV) and mass spectrometry (MS) images from traditional affordable analytical equipment. As a proof of concept, we applied this methodology on two microbial antagonisms observed among co-habitant endophytes isolated from endemic plants of arid areas of the south of Europe.

Conclusions

The use of UV and MS images highlighted interacting naturals products and allowed clear identification of induced molecules of interest not produced by the strains when cultured individually.

Potential production platform of n-butanol in Escherichia coli

We proposed a potential production platform of n-butanol in Escherichia coli. First, a butyrate-conversion strain was developed by removal of undesired genes and recruiting endogenous atoDA and Clostridium adhE2. Consequently, this E. coli strain grown on the M9 mineral salt with yeast extract (M9Y) was shown to produce 6.2g/L n-butanol from supplemented butyrate at 36h. The molar conversion yield of n-butanol on butyrate reaches 92%. Moreover, the production platform was advanced by additional inclusion of a butyrate-producing strain. This strain was equipped with a pathway comprising atoDA and heterologous genes for the synthesis of butyrate. Without butyrate, the butyrate-conversion and the butyrate-producing strains were co-cultured in M9Y medium and produced 5.5g/L n-butanol from glucose at 24h. The production yield on glucose accounts for 69% of the theoretical yield. Overall, it indicates a promise of the developed platform for n-butanol production in E. coli.