Synthetic biology advances towards a bio-based society in the era of artificial intelligence.

Synthetic biology is a rapidly emerging field with broad underlying applications in health, industry, agriculture, or environment, enabling sustainable solutions for unmet needs of modern society. With the very recent addition of artificial intelligence (AI) approaches, this field is now growing at a rate that can help reach the envisioned goals of bio-based society within the next few decades. Integrating AI with plant-based technologies, such as protein engineering, phytochemicals production, plant system engineering, or microbiome engineering, potentially disruptive applications have already been reported. These include enzymatic synthesis of new-to-nature molecules, bioelectricity generation, or biomass applications as construction material. Thus, in the not-so-distant future, synthetic biologists will help attain the overarching goal of a sustainable yet efficient production system for every aspect of society.

Increased aerosol scattering contributes to the recent monsoon rainfall decrease over the Gangetic Plain.

The climate effects of atmospheric aerosols remain highly uncertain. Part of the uncertainty arises from the fact that scattering and absorbing aerosols have distinct or even opposite effects. Thus their relative fraction is critical in determining the overall aerosol climate effect. This study combines observations and global model simulations to demonstrate that changes in the fraction of scattering and absorbing aerosols play an important role in driving the monsoon precipitation decrease over northern India since the 1980s, especially over the Gangetic Basin. Increased aerosol scattering, or decreased aerosol absorption, manifested as a significant increase of aerosol single scattering albedo (SSA), causes strong cooling in the upper atmosphere. This suppresses vertical convection and thus reduces precipitation. Further analysis of the Couple Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 multi-model-mean historical simulation shows that failing to capture the SSA increase over northern India is likely an important cause of the simulated precipitation trend bias in this area.

Engineering yeast for the production of plant terpenoids using synthetic biology approaches.

Covering: 2011-2022The low amounts of terpenoids produced in plants and the difficulty in synthesizing these complex structures have stimulated the production of terpenoid compounds in microbial hosts by metabolic engineering and synthetic biology approaches. Advances in engineering yeast for terpenoid production will be covered in this review focusing on four directions: (1) manipulation of host metabolism, (2) rewiring and reconstructing metabolic pathways, (3) engineering the catalytic activity, substrate selectivity and product specificity of biosynthetic enzymes, and (4) localizing terpenoid production via enzymatic fusions and scaffolds, or subcellular compartmentalization.

Engineering membrane architecture for biotechnological applications.

Cellular membranes, predominantly described as a dynamic bilayer, are composed of different lipids, transmembrane proteins, and carbohydrates. Most research on biological membranes focuses on the identification, characterization, and mechanistic aspects of their different components. These studies provide a fundamental understanding of membrane structure, function, and dynamics, establishing a basis for the development of membrane engineering strategies. To date, approaches in this field concentrate on membrane adaptation to harsh conditions during industrial fermentation, which can be caused by temperature, osmotic, or organic solvent stress. With advances in the field of metabolic engineering and synthetic biology, recent breakthroughs include proof of concept microbial production of essential medicines, such as cannabinoids and vinblastine. However, long pathways, low yields, and host adaptation continue to pose challenges to the efficient scale up production of many important compounds. The lipid bilayer is profoundly linked to the activity of heterologous membrane-bound enzymes and transport of metabolites. Therefore, strategies for improving enzyme performance, facilitating pathway reconstruction, and enabling storage of products to increase the yields directly involve cellular membranes. At the forefront of membrane engineering research are re-emerging approaches in lipid research and synthetic biology that manipulate membrane size and composition and target lipid profiles across species. This review summarizes engineering strategies applied to cellular membranes and discusses the challenges and future perspectives, particularly with regards to their applications in host engineering and bioproduction.

A metagenomic study of the gut microbiome in PTB'S disease.

BACKGROUND: There is an abundant link between the gut microbiota and human health and it plays a critical role in the clinic. It is recognized that microbial dysregulation contributes to the pathogenesis of tuberculosis (TB) but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. In this study, we investigated the association of gut microbiome composition with TB as well as its possible roles in the development of this disease. METHODS: Fecal samples were collected from 10 TB patients and 20 healthy control samples. DNA extracted from fecal samples was subjected to 16S rDNA gene sequencing analysis on the Illumina MiSeq platform. RESULTS: Compared with healthy control samples, the gut microbiome of patients with TB was characterized by the decreased Alpha diversity. Perhaps, the decrease of microbial diversity which results in microbial dysregulation is the reason for clinical patients with more symptoms. The PTB group showed the most unique microbiota by higher abundance of Bifidobacteriaceae, Bifidobacteriales, Coriobacteriaceae, Coriobacteriales, Actinobacteria, Caulobacteraceae, Phyllobacteriaceae, Rhizobiales, Burkholderiaceae, Burkholderiaceae. Inflammatory status in PTB patients may be associated with the increased abundance of Clostridia and decreased abundance of Prevotella. We found that the abundance of Solobacterium and Actinobacteria was higher in the patients. There were 4 significant differences (p < 0.05) in the two groups which belonged to four metabolic categories, including endocytosis, phosphotransferase system (PTS), toluene degradation, and amoebiasis. CONCLUSION: We applied the approach of metagenomic sequencing to characterize the features of gut microbiota in PTB patients. The present study provided a detailed analysis of the characterization of the gut microbiota in patients based on the clinic. According to the metagenome analysis, our results indicated that the gut microbiota in PTB patients was significantly different from healthy control samples as characterized by the bacteria and metabolic pathway. The richness of the gut microbiota in patients was revealed. It was hypothesized that the above-mentioned changes of the gut microbiota could exert an impact on the development of PTB through the downstream regulation of the immune status of the host by way of the gut-lung axis.

The impact of synoptic patterns on summertime ozone pollution in the North China Plain.

Surface ozone pollution is a challenging environmental issue in most parts of China. In particular, the North China Plain (NCP) region suffers from the severest ozone pollution throughout the country. In addition to the emission of precursors, ozone concentration is closely related to meteorological conditions resulting from regional atmospheric circulation. In this study, we investigate the relationship between synoptic patterns and summertime ozone pollution in the NCP using the objective principal component analysis in T-mode (T-PCA) classification method. Four dominant synoptic patterns are identified during the summers of 2014-2018. The heaviest ozone pollution is found to be associated with a high pressure anomaly over the Northwest Pacific and a distinct low pressure center in Northeast China. The southwesterly wind surrounding the low pressure center brings dry, warm air from inland South China, resulting in a high temperature, low humidity environment in the NCP, which favors the chemical formation of surface ozone. Locally, this type is associated with a moderate planetary boundary layer height (PBLH) of ~860 m and a stronger warm anomaly within the boundary layer than the upper level. We also notice a non-linear relationship between surface ozone concentration and the PBLH, i.e., ozone concentration first increases with PBLH till ~0.9 km, and then remains stable. This initial increase may relate to enhanced mixing with upper levels where ozone concentration is typically higher than that near the surface. However, when PBLH further increases, this downward mixing effect is balanced with the stronger upward turbulent mixing so that surface ozone shows little change. The synoptic patterns identified here, however, is unlikely responsible for the observed increasing trend in ozone concentration over the NCP region. Our study sheds light on the meteorological contribution to surface ozone pollution in North China and provides a reference for the pollution control and prediction.

In vitro activity of novel oxazolidinone analogs and 13 conventional antimicrobial agents against clinical isolates of Staphylococcus aureus in Beijing, China.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been a public health concern since it was first identified in the United Kingdom in 1961. In this study, we investigated the prevalence of MRSA in the PLA 309 Hospital located in Beijing, China, and we determined the susceptibility of S. aureus to novel oxazolidinone analogs and 13 conventional antimicrobial agents. It was shown that drug resistant patterns were severe among the clinical isolates, and the average rate of MRSA among the S. aureus strains was 56.3%. All the S. aureus strains tested were completely susceptible to linezolid, but the minimum inhibitory concentration distribution drifted upwards. Among the novel oxazolidinone analogs, sy142 exhibited more potent antimicrobial activity than linezolid against both the standard and clinical S. aureus strains. This observation provides an impetus for the development of potential novel agents based on sy142 in the near future to combat MRSA and linezolid-resistant S. aureus.