New bacterial culture methods could result in the discovery of new species
The culture-dependent study allowed to isolate a surprisingly large number of diverse and previously unreported bacterial strains from the Tabernas Desert
2021-01-05
(Press-News.org) Microorganisms are the most abundant and diverse form of life on Earth. However, the vast majority of them remain unknown. Indeed, only a small fraction of the microorganisms of our planet can be cultured under traditional conditions, leaving a world of unculturable organisms out of our scope. This is especially true for bacteria thriving under extreme conditions as the harsh conditions are hardly reproducible in a lab. While some microbial studies have been performed in the Sahara, the Atacama, and the Gibson desert, European arid lands remain poorly studied.
To finally explore the microbial community of some European deserts, researchers from the University of Valencia and the Darwin Bioprospecting Excellence, here studied the bacterial diversity of the semi-arid Tabernas Desert. To this aim, the team developed new bacterial culture approaches.
"Culturomics of the Tabernas desert was the ideal crossroad between a rare, poorly studied environment, and the application of simple, yet powerful culturing techniques including long incubation times, diluted media, and careful colony picking", says Dr Manuel Porcar, group leader at the University of Valencia, president of Darwin Bioprospecting Excellence, and last author of the study.
The researchers experimented with different culture methods to find permissive conditions for some unculturable species. Their strategy lied in combining different media, using serial dilutions of the nutrients (up to a hundred times), and extending incubation time (up to a month). In total, 254 bacterial strains were isolated. Most of the species isolated from the concentrated media were previously described as soil inhabitants or species isolated from other deserts. However, 60% of the strains isolated from the highly diluted media are non-identified and possibly new bacteria species. Besides, playing on incubation times also allowed, after a month, to isolate some oligotrophic strains (slow-growing bacteria living under low nutrient conditions) otherwise difficult to growth under lab conditions.
Altogether, this study highlights the potential of simple strategies to obtain higher microbial diversity from natural samples, especially if taken from extreme environments. But the unexploited bacterial biodiversity of the Tabernas Desert could have impacts well beyond ecology and bacteriology:
"We are currently characterising several of the unidentified bacteria, three of them being new Kineococcus species. I am certain that some bacterial strains produce biotechnologically relevant products. It is just a matter to carry out the right screening", says Porcar.
INFORMATION:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-01-05
An effective response to a pandemic like the COVID-19 will only be successful if people voluntarily follow the rules and guidelines of decision-makers and experts. Many of the required measures, such as avoiding social contact and significantly changing our daily habits require a strong commitment. Other necessary actions, such as regular hand washing, are often impossible to monitor and enforce. Adherence to the guidelines thus depends on people's personal commitment.
The ability of policy makers and experts to communicate convincingly to citizens has a strong influence on whether ...
2021-01-05
CORVALLIS, Ore. - Co-developing land for both solar photovoltaic power and agriculture could provide 20% of total electricity generation in the United States with an investment of less than 1% of the annual U.S. budget, a new paper by Oregon State University researchers found.
Wide-scale installation of agrivoltaic systems could lead to an annual reduction of 330,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S - the equivalent of 75,000 cars off the road per year - and the creation of more than 100,000 jobs in rural communities, while minimally impacting crop yield, the researchers say.
"Agrivoltaics provide a rare chance for true synergy: more food, more energy, lower water demand, lower carbon emissions, and more prosperous rural communities," said Chad Higgins, an associate ...
2021-01-05
Durham, NC - Mid-term results of the first clinical trial designed specifically to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of two cell therapies that are showing early promise in treating angiitis-induced critical limb ischemia were released today in STEM CELLS Translational Medicine. The study, by researchers at Zhongshan Hospital/Fudan University in Shanghai, compared how transplantation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells fared versus transplantation of purified CD34+ cells in treating this condition.
It revealed both therapies yielded satisfactory results and provided evidence for ...
2021-01-05
DALLAS - Jan. 5, 2021 - Researchers at the Children's Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI) have discovered a new metabolic vulnerability in a highly aggressive form of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). These findings could pave the way for new treatments for patients with mutations in two key genes - KRAS and LKB1. Patients whose tumors contain both of these mutations, known as KL tumors, have poor outcomes and usually do not respond to immunotherapy.
"We used to think that most tumors rely on the same handful of metabolic pathways to grow, but we've learned over the last decade that this is an oversimplification. Instead, different tumor subclasses have particular metabolic needs arising from mutations ...
2021-01-05
Trio of articles suggest that a single dose of vaccine, even if less effective than two doses, may have greater population benefit.
Three articles published today in Annals of Internal Medicine discuss the most effective vaccination strategy for maximum impact against the COVID-19 pandemic. The articles are accompanied by an editorial from Thomas J. Bollyky, JD, Director of Global Health Program, Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Bollyky can be reached through Lauran Potter at lpotter@cfr.org. The full text of his editorial is available here: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-8280.
Speed Versus Efficacy: Quantifying Potential Tradeoffs in COVID-19 Vaccine Deployment https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-7866.
Researchers from Yale School of Public ...
2021-01-05
The combination of ibrutinib plus rituximab is approved for the treatment of adults with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL). In an early benefit assessment, the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) now examined which advantages and disadvantages this drug combination has for the patients. For patients who could also be treated with the chemo-immunotherapy FCR, the assessment found an indication of a major added benefit in comparison with this appropriate comparator therapy. No study data are available for patients for whom FCR or other chemo-immunotherapy is not an option due to their poorer general health. An added benefit is therefore ...
2021-01-05
PULLMAN, Wash. - In what may be a sign of climate-change-induced conflict, researchers have captured rare photographic evidence of a jaguar killing another predatory wild cat at an isolated waterhole in Guatemala.
In the footage, a male jaguar arrives near the waterhole and apparently lies in wait for an hour. It lets a potentially dangerous prey animal, a large tapir, pass by, but when the ocelot stops to drink, the jaguar pounces and carries off the smaller predator.
The event, detailed in a recent study published in the journal Biotropica, was captured in the Maya Biosphere Reserve in March 2019, a dry month in a drought year for the tropical forest, by wildlife ecologists from Washington State University ...
2021-01-05
LA JOLLA--(January 5, 2021) Lithium is considered the gold standard for treating bipolar disorder (BD), but nearly 70 percent of people with BD don't respond to it. This leaves them at risk for debilitating, potentially life-threatening mood swings. Researchers at the Salk Institute have found that the culprit may lie in gene activity--or lack of it.
A new study led by Salk Professor and President Rusty Gage, which published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry on January 4, 2021, shows that decreased activation of a gene called LEF1 disrupts ordinary ...
2021-01-05
Researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) describe an endoscopic modality for detecting upper gastrointestinal tract neoplasms by Linked Color Imaging that innovatively mixes light of different wavelengths to better depict mucosal changes
Tokyo, Japan - Recently there have been significant advances on several fronts in the ongoing war against cancer of the alimentary tract. Now, Japanese researchers report the development of another weapon: Linked Color Imaging (LCI), a novel endoscopic technique that improves detection of cancer by viewing the upper digestive tract mucosa under illumination that combines specific wavelengths of light to intensify subtle color variations indicative of neoplastic change.
Upper gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy ...
2021-01-05
Researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) and Ionis Pharmaceuticals, USA, report a modification wherein replacing the RNA strand of a heteroduplex oligonucleotide with DNA may enhance the efficacy of antisense oligonucleotide-based drugs
Tokyo, Japan - Antisense oligonucleotides (ASO) hold great promise for pharmacotherapy. Now, researchers at Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) and Ionis Pharmaceuticals, advancing their earlier work on a heteroduplex oligonucleotide (HDO) model, have demonstrated augmentation of ASO-based ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] New bacterial culture methods could result in the discovery of new species
The culture-dependent study allowed to isolate a surprisingly large number of diverse and previously unreported bacterial strains from the Tabernas Desert
