Study creates bacteria that consume carbon dioxide for growth

Agencies
November 30, 2019

Washington D.C., Nov 30: Researchers have developed bacteria called Escherichia coli, which consume carbon-di-oxide for energy instead of organic compounds.

This creation in synthetic biology highlights the incredible plasticity of bacterial metabolism and could provide the framework for future carbon-neutral bioproduction. The work appeared in the journal -- Cell.

"Our main aim was to create a convenient scientific platform that could enhance CO2 fixation, which can help address challenges related to the sustainable production of food and fuels and global warming caused by CO2 emissions," said senior author Ron Milo, at systems biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

"Converting the carbon source of E. coli, the workhorse of biotechnology, from organic carbon into CO2 is a major step towards establishing such a platform," added Milo.

A grand challenge in synthetic biology has been to generate synthetic autotrophy within a model heterotrophic organism.

Despite widespread interest in renewable energy storage and more sustainable food production, past efforts to engineer industrially relevant heterotrophic model organisms to use CO2 as the sole carbon source has failed.

Previous attempts to establish autocatalytic CO2 fixation cycles in model heterotrophs always required the addition of multi-carbon organic compounds to achieve stable growth.

"From a basic scientific perspective, we wanted to see if such a major transformation in the diet of bacteria -- from dependence on sugar to the synthesis of all their biomass from CO2 -- is possible," said first author Shmuel Gleizer (@GleizerShmuel), a Weizmann Institute of Science postdoctoral fellow.

"Beyond testing the feasibility of such a transformation in the lab, we wanted to know how extreme an adaptation is needed in terms of the changes to the bacterial DNA blueprint," added Gleizer.

The researchers used metabolic rewiring and lab evolution to convert E. coli into autotrophs. The engineered strain harvests energy from formate, which can be produced electrochemically from renewable sources.

Because formate is an organic one-carbon compound that does not serve as a carbon source for E. coli growth, it does not support heterotrophic pathways.

They inactivated central enzymes involved in heterotrophic growth, rendering the bacteria more dependent on autotrophic pathways for growth.

They also grew the cells in chemostats with a limited supply of the sugar xylose -- a source of organic carbon -- to inhibit heterotrophic pathways.

The initial supply of xylose for approximately 300 days was necessary to support enough cell proliferation to kick start evolution. The chemostat also contained plenty of formates and a 10% CO2 atmosphere.

By sequencing the genome and plasmids of the evolved autotrophic cells, the researchers discovered that as few as 11 mutations were acquired through the evolutionary process in the chemostat.
One set of mutations affected genes encoding enzymes linked to the carbon fixation cycle.

The authors said that one major study limitation is that the consumption of formate by bacteria releases more CO2 than is consumed through carbon fixation.

In addition, more research is needed before it's possible to discuss the scalability of the approach for industrial use.

In future work, the researchers will aim to supply energy through renewable electricity to address the problem of CO2 release, determine whether ambient atmospheric conditions could support autotrophy, and try to narrow down the most relevant mutations for autotrophic growth.

"This feat is a powerful proof of concept that opens up a new exciting prospect of using engineered bacteria to transform products we regard as waste into fuel, food or other compounds of interest," Milo said.

"It can also serve as a platform to better understand and improve the molecular machines that are the basis of food production for humanity and thus help in the future to increase yields in agriculture," added Milo.

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Agencies
June 20,2020

The World Health Organisation has warned that the COVID-19 pandemic is entering a "new and dangerous" phase. Thursday saw the most cases in a single day reported to the WHO.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the day had seen 150,000 new cases with half of those coming from the Americas and large numbers also from the Middle East and South Asia, the BBC reported.

He said the virus was still spreading fast and the pandemic accelerating.

He acknowledged people might be fed up with self-isolating and countries were eager to open their economies but he said that now was a time for extreme vigilance.

Maria van Kerkhove, technical lead of the WHO's COVID-19 response, told a press conference the pandemic is "accelerating in many parts of the world".

"While we have seen countries have some success in suppressing transmission and bringing transition down to a low level, every country must remain ready," she said.

Mike Ryan, the head of the WHO's Health Emergencies Programme, said that some countries had managed to flatten the peak of infections without bringing them down to a very low level.

"You can see a situation in some countries where they could get a second peak now, because the disease has not been brought under control," he said.

"The disease will then go away and reduce to a low level, and they could then get a second wave again in the autumn or later in the year."

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Agencies
April 17,2020

Washington DC, Apr 17: In recent research, scientists have linked the emotional, social and psychiatric problems in children and adolescents with higher levels of genetic vulnerability for adult depression. The study implies that the genetics passed from parents may be linked with psychiatric problems in children and adolescents and may also leading to depression in adults.

University of Queensland scientists made the finding while analysing the genetic data of more than 42,000 children and adolescents from seven cohorts across Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK.

Professor Christel Middeldorp said that researchers have also found a link with a higher genetic vulnerability for insomnia, neuroticism and body mass index.

"By contrast, study participants with higher genetic scores for educational attainment and emotional well-being were found to have reduced childhood problems," Professor Middeldorp said.

"We calculated a person's level of genetic vulnerability by adding up the number of risk genes they had for a specific disorder or trait and then made adjustments based on the level of importance of each gene We found the relationship was mostly similar across ages," Middeldorp added.

The results indicate there are shared genetic factors that affect a range of psychiatric and related traits across a person's lifespan.

Middeldorp said that around 50 per cent of children and adolescents with psychiatric problems, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), continue to experience mental disorders as adults, and are at risk of disengaging with their school community among other social and emotional problems.

"Our findings are important as they suggest this continuity between childhood and adult traits is partly explained by genetic risk," the Professor said.

"Individuals at risk of being affected should be the focus of attention and targeted treatment," Middeldorp continued.

"Although the genetic vulnerability is not accurate enough at this stage to make individual predictions about how a person's symptoms will develop over time, it may become so in the future, in combination with other risk factors. And, this may support precision medicine by providing targeted treatments to children at the highest risk of persistent emotional and social problems," Middeldorp added.

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Agencies
April 14,2020

There is no evidence that the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine, which is primarily used against tuberculosis, protects people against infection with the novel coronavirus, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

The WHO therefore didn't recommend BCG vaccination for the prevention of COVID-19 in the absence of evidence, according to its daily situation report on Monday, Xinhua news agency reported.

"There is experimental evidence from both animal and human studies that the BCG vaccine has non-specific effects on the immune system. These effects have not been well characterized and their clinical relevance remains unknown," WHO stated.

Two clinical trials addressing the question are underway, and WHO will evaluate the evidence when it is available, it noted.

BCG vaccination prevents severe forms of tuberculosis in children and diversion of local supplies may result in an increase of disease and deaths from the tuberculosis, it warned.

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