Degradation behaviors of nonylphenol ethoxylates by isolated bacteria using improved isolation method

Nonylphenol ethoxylate (NPEO)-degrading bacteria were isolated from activated sludge using an improved isolation method, and the corresponding degradation behaviours were investigated. Eight NPEO-degrading strains distributed in genera Pseudomonas, Sphingomonas, Sphingobium, Cupriavidus, Ralstonia, Achromobacter, and Staphylococcus were acquired. The latter five genera have never been reported for the degradation of NPEOs. Four degradation patterns were observed for the eight pure strains. In pattern A, NPE...

Cultivating the unseen:Lessons from James Tiedje

In recounting Dr.James M.Tiedje's outstanding research achievements spanning the past 55 years,it is easy to overlook his early and mid-career endeavors.Specifically,his contribution to the aerobic degradation of pesticides and other chemicals,as well as methanogenic degradation of those compounds retains their brilliance.Many researchers in environmental microbiology have gained invaluable knowledge from these studies,which have been applied to the elucidation of previously uncultivated microorganisms.

基于基因组信息指导的古菌培养新策略

古菌、细菌及真核生物共同组成了地球上的三域生命体系.其中古菌域不仅包含了现今地球上最古老的生命类群,如产甲烷古菌;同时,阿斯加德(Asgard)古菌超门还被认为是真核生物的共同祖先.近些年来,随着地球科学和生命科学交叉研究日益加深,科学家发现古菌在地球化学元素循环中也起到了显著作用.通过不依赖于纯培养的高通量测序技术分析,表明古菌具有丰富的物种多样性,现已发现超过20个全新的古菌门.然而,目前仅在其中4个古菌门中获得了纯培养菌株,对古菌生理特征、起源与演化以及生态功能的认识也受到纯培养古菌菌株稀缺的限制,无法通过实验验证环境中未培养古菌基因组所预测到的功能基因.在本综述中,简述了古菌的发现与研究进展,对比了未培养和纯培养古菌之间的差距,并呼吁将更多的努力和科研资源投入到古菌分离和纯培养工作中.文章还概述了基于大量未培养古菌基因组指导分离和纯培养的新思路和新策略,即:基因组功能预测、代谢互作网络构建、基因组水平代谢建模、机器学习预测培养条件,期望能够使用现代高通量测序技术所积累的未培养古菌基因组数据来帮助获得更多新的纯培养古菌菌株.

New approaches for archaeal genome-guided cultivation

Archaea,one of the three domains of life along with Bacteria and Eukarya,contains ancient life forms such as methanogen that are observed today on Earth,and one lineage Asgard archaea is also considered the closest ancestor of Eukarya.Recently,with the development of interdisciplinary studies from Earth and Life sciences,archaeal organisms are considered to play pivotal roles in geochemical cycling in nature.However,our understanding of the attributes,origin and evolution,geochemical and ecological functions of Archaea is hampered by the scarcity of archaeal isolates,which has represented a challenge to researchers for the last 40 years.Cultivation-independent sequencing and phylogenomic analyses have demonstrated a considerable diversity of Archaea with more than 20 novel phyla.However,only four archaeal phyla have cultured representatives,leaving large gaps in our knowledge of the metabolic capabilities and ecological functions of the majority of archaeal strains identified exclusively by DNA sequencing.In this review,we summarize the discovery and development of archaeal research,highlight the knowledge gap between uncultured and cultured archaeal microbes,and call on the importance of devoting greater research efforts to archaeal cultivation.Finally,we outlined new ideas and strategic approaches,namely,(1)genome-based methods,(2)microbial network information-based methods,(3)genome-scale model-guided methods,and(4)machine learning methods,to enable the cultivation of uncultivated archaeal microbes using accumulated high-throughput sequencing data.