Bioethanol Production from Molasses by Yeasts with Stress-Tolerance Isolated from Aquatic Environments in Japan

Bioethanol is a safe and renewable source of energy that continues to be a research focus, since fossil fuels have been linked to global warming and nuclear energy sources are affected by the increased safety concerns following the 2011 nuclear power plant accident in Japan. In general, bioethanol is converted from a biomass by yeast fermentation. The production efficiency of this bioethanol is not sufficiently high, and its practical use as a substitute for fossil fuels and nuclear energy is thus limited. For the industrial production of bioethanol, the yeast fermentation of biomass cultures containing high concentration sugar, NaCl, and ethanol is necessary, but this might induce phenomena in which the stresses arising in the yeasts weaken their cells during fermentation. As described herein, we isolated 1028 strains of yeasts from natural aquatic environments: Japan’s Tama River and Lake Kasumigaura. Among them, 412 strains were fermentative yeasts and 31 strains showed high fermentation ability under a 30% sorbitol + 10% ethanol condition. These strains were identified as Torulaspola delbrueckii, Wickerhamomyces anomalus, Candida glabrata, Pichia kudriavzevii, Saccharomyces cf. cerevisiae/paradoxus, and Lachancea kluyveri. The strains T. delbrueckii, W. anomalus, and C. glabrata also showed tolerance against 15% NaCl. Most importantly, S. cf. cerevisiae/paradoxus H28 and L. kluyveri F2-67 produced 57.4 g/L and 53.9 g/L ethanol from molasses (sucrose 104.0 g/L, fructose 33.4 g/L, and glucose 24.8 g/L) within 48 hrs at 25°C, respectively.

Agronomic Traits of Transgenic Soybean Overexpressing TaDREB3

Dongnong50 was overexpressing TaDREB3, a stress-tolerance gene, and transgenic progenies with TaDREB3 showing stable heredity characters were obtained in this study. The seeds of T4 generation were sowed on saline land of which salt concentration was 0.19% and pH was 8.43, and agronomic traits including growth period, plant height, numbers of main nodes, branching numbers, pods per plant, numbers of seeds per plant, and weight of 100-seed were collected and comparing to control plants Dongnong50 were made. The impacts of TaDREB3 gene on agronomic traits of soybeans under high concentration of salt were discussed. The results showed that the growth period was not altered in transgenic line with TaDREB3 under high concentration of saline and alkali, the extremely significant or significant increase in the numbers of main nodes, pods per plant and in branching numbers and other agronomic traits in transgenic lines in comparing with non-transgenic lines was an indicator of their resistance to saline-alkali stress

Nucleotide differences in the mbf1 gene of the lichenized fungus Umbilicaria decussata collected in polar and non-polar regions

Multiprotein bridging factor 1 （MBF1） is a transcriptional co-activator related to stress tolerance in various organisms. We investigated the nucleotide differences in the mbfl gene in the lichen-forming fungus Umbilicaria decussata collected from polar （i.e., Antarctica and the Arctic） and non-polar （i.e., Armenia） regions. The 552-bp Udmbfl genes isolated from eight samples contained numerous sequence variations, including single nucleotide polymorphisms as well as insertions and deletions. The frequency of nucleotide changes was higher in the intron than in the coding sequence. The nucleotide polymorphism levels （n=0.01792, 0=-0.01792） and haplotype diversity （Hd=-l） in the Udmbfl gene from Antarctic samples were relatively high. Additionally, of the 19 detected nucleotide sequence variation sites, 15 were observed only in Antarctic samples. The resulting amino acid changes occurred in the N-terminal, whose function remains unknown. Although these DNA polymorphisms and amino acid changes have been verified in Antarctic samples of U. decussata, there is still little evidence indicating that different environmental conditions affected the functional evolution of Udmbfl. Additional studies involving more U. decussata samples fi＇om representative ecotypes will be necessary to tmcover the relationships among DNA polymorphisms, functional gene evolution, and lichen habitats.

Traits uncover quasi-neutral community assembly in a coastal heath vegetation

Aims Trait-based approaches are increasingly being used in ecology due to their potential to explain and predict community structure and dynamic regardless of species identities.Here,we asked whether coastal heath vegetation established in stressful habitats could be assembled by quasi-neutral mechanisms based on functional trait distribution.Communities are organized through quasi-neutral dynamics if abiotic gradients and/or species interactions impose sorting on functional traits and species performances,but not on species phylogenetic relatedness and occurrence.Methods The study was conducted in a coastal area containing tall dunes near the sea,and relatively flat areas punctuated by short palaeodunes further inland,Northeastern South America.We evaluated 10 traits of the 21 most abundant species,as well as eight abiotic variables in 70 plots(25 m^(2))established in dune tops,valleys,flat and steep microenvironments.The effect of environmental filter was tested by linear mixed models(LMM)between each community-weighted mean(CWM)trait and the abiotic variables,and by two indices of environmental filtering based on intra-and interspecific-trait vari-ability relative to null models.To evaluate the effect of species inter-actions,we used an index of niche overlap relative to null models,and LMMs between this index and the species richness of plots.Important Findings The environmental filtering index did not deviate from null expect-ations for any trait.Models that included individual variability per-formed similarly to models that used species mean traits.However,the explicit consideration of environmental gradients by CWM ana-lyses revealed functional patterns that would remain undetected if trait distribution was analyzed only.In addition,intraspecific vari-ation in the stem length was an important driver of species diversity as suggested by the relationship between species richness and the niche overlap index.Based on the occurrence and phylogenetic re-latedness of species,previous work in the same system found neu-tral community assembly.We concluded that to ignore functional traits may lead to underestimations of niche-based processes,and that analyses of species occurrence and phylogenetic relatedness should be complemented with functional traits to reinforce our in-terpretation of processes underpinning community assembly.In this regard,the study heath vegetation is influenced by quasi-neutral effects on functional trait distribution.