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An energy-saving ethanol fermentation technology was developed using uncooked fresh sweet potato as raw material. A mutant strain of Aspergillus niger isolated from mildewed sweet potato was used to produce abundant raw starch saccharification enzymes for treating uncooked sweet potato storage roots. The viscosity of the fermentation paste of uncooked sweet potato roots was lower than that of the cooked roots. The ethanol fermentation was carried out by Zymomonas mobilis, and 14.4 g of ethanol (87.2% of the theoretical yield) was produced from 100g of fresh sweet potato storage roots. Based on this method, an energy-saving, high efficient and environment-friendly technology can be developed for large-scale production of fuel ethanol from sweet potato roots.

Urea is the most common nitrogen (N) fertilizer in agriculture, due to its cheaper price and high N content. Although the reciprocal influence between NO3- and NH4+ nutrition are well known, urea (U) interactions with these N-inorganic forms are poorly studied. Here, the responses of two tomato genotypes to ammonium nitrate (AN), U alone or in combination were investigated. Significant differences in root and shoot biomass between genotypes were observed. Under AN+U supply, Linosa showed higher biomass compared to UC82, exhibiting also higher values for many root architectural traits. Linosa showed higher Nitrogen Uptake (NUpE) and Utilization Efficiency (NUtE) compared to UC82, under AN+U nutrition. Interestingly, Linosa exhibited also a significantly higher DUR3 transcript abundance. These results underline the beneficial effect of AN+U nutrition, highlighting new molecular and physiological strategies for selecting crops that can be used for more sustainable agriculture. The data suggest that translocation and utilization (NUtE) might be a more important component of NUE than uptake (NUpE) in tomato. Genetic variation could be a source for useful NUE traits in tomato; further experiments are needed to dissect the NUtE components that confer a higher ability to utilize N in Linosa.

The increasing demand for lignocellulosic biomass for the production of biofuels provides value to vegetative plant tissue and leads to a paradigm shift for optimizing plant architecture in bioenergy crops. Plant height (PHT) is among the most important biomass yield components and is the focus of this review, with emphasis on the energy grasses maize (Zea mays) and sorghum (Sorghum bicolor). We discuss the scientific advances in the identification of PHT quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and the understanding of pathways and genes controlling PHT, especially gibberellins and brassinosteroids. We consider pleiotropic effects of QTLs or genes affecting PHT on other agronomically important traits and, finally, we discuss strategies for applying this knowledge to the improvement of dual-purpose or dedicated bioenergy crops.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi play key roles in plant nutrition and plant productivity. AM fungal responses to either plant identity or fertilization have been investigated. However, the interactive effects of different plant species and fertilizer types on these symbiotic fungi remain poorly understood. We evaluated the effects of the factorial combinations of plant identity (grasses Avena sativa and Elymus nutans and legume Vicia sativa) and fertilization (urea and sheep manure) on AM fungi following 2-year monocultures in a sown pasture field study. AM fungal extraradical hyphal density was significantly higher in E. nutans than that in A. sativa and V. sativa in the unfertilized control and was significantly increased by urea and manure in A. sativa and by manure only in E. nutans, but not by either fertilizers in V. sativa. AM fungal spore density was not significantly affected by plant identity or fertilization. Forty-eight operational taxonomic units (OTUs) of AM fungi were obtained through 454 pyrosequencing of 18S rDNA. The OTU richness and Shannon diversity index of AM fungi were significantly higher in E. nutans than those in V. sativa and/or A. sativa, but not significantly affected by any fertilizer in all of the three plant species. AM fungal community composition was significantly structured directly by plant identity only and indirectly by both urea addition and plant identity through soil total nitrogen content. Our findings highlight that plant identity has stronger influence than fertilization on belowground AM fungal community in this converted pastureland from an alpine meadow.

The logistic growth model combined with the Luedeking-Piret equation was adopted in this study to model the batch production of CoQ(10) in the cultivation of Rhodobacter sphaeroides. The simulation results indicated that CoQ(10) production was a primary metabolite. As being a primary metabolite, a longer cell growing stage would tend to accumulate more biomass and lead to a higher CoQ(10) concentration being produced. In this context, a fed-batch operation by molasses feeding was performed to increase the biomass and subsequent CoQ(10) production. Three different molasses feeding strategies were operated in this study. Results suggested that the fed-batch operation with molasses controlled at 10 + or - 1 g/l could increase the cell mass and CoQ(10) concentration to reach their maximum values of 18.6 g/l and 83.8 mg/l, respectively, nearly 2.2 times and 1.9 times their respective values obtained in the batch cultivation.

We evaluated whether fish oil or vitamin E administration affected ethanol-induced changes in membrane ATPases. Male Wistar rats (225-250 g) were fed, through a gastric tube a liquid diet containing fish oil (25% of calories) and ethanol for one month. Another group of animals was given supplemental vitamin E (300 u/kg). In the pair-fed control animals, ethanol-derived calories were replaced with dextrose. The blood ethanol levels were maintained between 150 and 350 mg/dL. At sacrifice, the red cells were immediately washed with ice-cold saline, membranes were prepared and ATPases measured. These was no difference in the Na+K+ ATPase, Ca2+ ATPase and Mg2+ ATPase activities between the fish oil-dextrose and corn oil-dextrose groups. A decrease in Ca2+ ATPase and an increase in Na+K+ ATPase was seen with ethanol feeding; these change are similar to those seen in corn oil-ethanol fed rats. In contrast, Vitamin E administration prevented the ethanol-induced changes in ATPase. This observation provides support for the role of lipid peroxidation in alcohol-induced changes in cell membrane ATPase activities.

Pseudomonas sp. AKS2 isolated from soil degrades polyethylene succinate (PES) efficiently in the laboratory. However, this organism may not be able to degrade PES with similar efficiency in a natural habitat. Since in situ remediation is preferred for the effective removal of recalcitrant materials like plastic, in the current study, bioaugmentation potential of this organism was investigated. To investigate the potential of the AKS2 strain to bioaugment the PES-contaminated soil, a microcosm-based study was carried out wherein naturally attenuated, biostimulated, and AKS2-inoculated (bioaugmented) soil samples were examined for their ability to degrade PES. The results showed better degradation of PES by bioaugmented soil than other microcosms. Consistent with it, a higher number of PES-degrading organisms were found in the bioaugmented microcosm. The bioaugmented microcosm also exhibited a higher level of average well color development in BiOLOG ECO plate assay than the other two. The corresponding Shannon-Weaver index and Gini coefficient revealed a higher soil microbial diversity of bioaugmented microcosm than the others. This was further supported by community-level physiological profile of three different microcosms wherein we have observed better utilization of different carbon sources by bioaugmented microcosms. Collectively, these results demonstrate that bioaugmentation of PES-contaminated soil with AKS2 not only enhances polymer degradation but also increases microbial diversity. Bioaugmentation of soil with AKS2 enhances PES degradation without causing damage to soil ecology. Thus, Pseudomonas sp. AKS2 has the potential to be implemented as a useful tool for in situ bioremediation of PES.

Nine-day-old wheat seedlings were treated with NaCl at 75, 150, and 225 mM for 15 days in the absence or presence of 5 mM glycine. NaCl particularly at 150 and 225 mM led to significant reductions in fresh and dry weights, chlorophylls, carotenoids, Ca(2+), K(+), and K(+)/Na(+) ratio. Contrarily, there were significant accumulations in Na(+), malondialdehyde (MDA), H2O2, soluble sugars, and proline concomitant with inhibitions in enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants and in Rubisco. In the meantime, the transcript level of alternative oxidase (AOX) was highly upregulated by NaCl; the upregulation was greatest with the lowest concentration. However, the transcript level of H(+)/Na(+) antiporter exchanger (NHX1) was decreased by 75 and 150 mM NaCl but increased by 225 mM. Similarly, the transcript level of salt overly sensitive 1 (SOS1) was upregulated by only 225 mM. Nonetheless, the application of glycine mostly overcame the varied impacts of NaCl on growth, MDA, H2O2, pigments, metabolites, and elements. Moreover, glycine elevated enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants to reach most likely the levels of the respective control. On the contrary, much induction was detected in Rubisco. The transcript levels of AOX, NHX1, and SOS1 were further upregulated; the upregulation of AOX was most pronounced with the highest NaCl concentration in the presence of glycine and only with 75 and 150 mM NaCl for NHX1 and SOS1. The increase in antioxidants concomitant with the decrease in MDA and H2O2 reveals that ROS scavenging system became more efficient in NaCl-treated wheat following glycine application, concluding that glycine could ameliorate wheat tolerance to salinity. Moreover, lowering Na(+) by glycine and mitigation of the decreased K(+)/Na(+) ratio synchronous with recovery in growth reduction and stimulation of AOX, NHX1 and SOS1 may emphasize the role of glycine in stimulating gene expression for raising wheat tolerance to NaCl.