The diversity of rhizospheric bacterial communities associated with Trichoderma-treated rice fields.

Microbial-based fertilizer has been widely used as a healthier and better alternative to agrochemical products. However, the effects of biofertilizers on the rhizospheric microbiota has rarely been investigated. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of symbiotic fungus Trichoderma asperellum SL2-based inoculant on the soil bacterial population through next generation sequencing using a metabarcoding approach. The treatment plots were treated with T. asperellum SL2 spore suspension, while the control plots were treated with sterilized distilled water. The results showed similar bacterial microbiome profiles in the soil of control and T. asperellum SL2-treated plots. In conclusion, the application of the T. asperellum SL2 inoculant had not exerted a negative impact towards the bacterial population as similar observation was reflected in control plots. Nonetheless, future research should be conducted to investigate the effects of repeated application of T. asperellum SL2 over a longer period on the rice microbiota communities.

3D bone tissue growth in hollow fibre membrane bioreactor: implications of various process parameters on tissue nutrition.

New experimental evidence shows that hollow fibre membrane bioreactor (HFMB) may be applied to grow bulky bone tissues which may then be implanted into patients to repair skeletal defects. To design effective bone tissue engineering protocols, it is necessary to determine the quantitative relationships between the cell environment and tissue behaviour in HFMBs and their relationship with nutrient supply. It is also necessary to determine under what conditions nutritional limitations may occur and, hence, may cause cell death. These require that the appropriate bioreactor conditions for generating neotissues, and the nutrient transfer behaviour and chemical reaction during cell growth and extracellular matrix formation are studied thoroughly. In this paper, we aim to use an existing mathematical framework to analyse the influence of various relevant parameters on nutrient supply for bone tissue growth in HFMB. We adopt the well-known Krogh cylinder approximation of the HFMB. The model parameters (e.g., cell metabolic rates) and operating conditions for the mathematical model have been obtained from, or correspond to, in-house experiments with the exception of a few variables which have been taken from the literature. The framework is then used to study oxygen and glucose transport behaviour in the HFMB. Influence of a number of important process parameters, e.g., reaction kinetics, cell density, inlet concentration of nutrients, etc, on the nutrient distributions have been systematically analysed. The work presented in this paper provides insights on unfavourable system designs and specifications which may be avoided to prevent mass transfer limitations for growing bone tissues in HFMB.