Saturday, April 29, 2023

Pulling the plug on viral infections: CRISPR isn’t just about cutting

Study shows how a Cas protein partners with a unique membrane protein to stop viral infection in bacteria

UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER MEDICAL CENTER

Membrane Protein Enhances CRISPR Anti-viral Defense — IMAGE: STUDY IN SCIENCE SHOWS HOW A CAS PROTEIN PARTNERS WITH A UNIQUE MEMBRANE PROTEIN TO STOP VIRAL INFECTION IN BACTERIA. view more
CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER MEDICAL CENTER

CRISPR claimed scientific fame for its ability to quickly and accurately edit genes. But, at the core, CRISPR systems are immune systems that help bacteria protect themselves from viruses by targeting and destroying viral DNA and RNA. A new study published in Science reveals a previously unrecognized player in one such system – a membrane protein that enhances anti-viral defense – simultaneously broadening our understanding of and raising more questions related to the complexities of CRISPR.

Uncovering New Clues about CRISPR

CRISPR systems consist of two major components – a guide RNA that targets a specific viral DNA or RNA sequence and a Cas enzyme that cuts the targeted DNA or RNA, preventing a virus from replicating and spreading. A team at the University of Rochester Center for RNA Biology found that a specific Cas protein (Cas13b) not only cuts viral RNA, but communicates with another protein (Csx28) to augment its anti-viral defense.

In partnership with scientists at Cornell, the team discovered that the Csx28 protein forms a pore-like structure (i.e. it has a big hole in it). When they infected E. coli with a phage (virus that attacks bacteria) and deployed the CRISPR-Cas13 system to target and halt infection, they found that Cas13 signals to Csx28 to affect membrane permeability. Once this happens, Csx28 wreaks havoc in the infected cell, discombobulating membrane potential, crushing metabolism and hindering energy production. A virus can’t replicate under such unhospitable circumstances, leading to the team’s conclusion that Csx28 enhances CRISPR-Cas13b’s phage defense.

“This finding upends the idea that CRISPR systems mount their defense only by degrading RNA and DNA in cells and really broadens our view of how CRISPR systems may be working,” said corresponding author Mitchell O’Connell, PhD, assistant professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and a member of the UR Center for RNA Biology. “When we think about CRISPR, we see Cas proteins such as Cas9 or Cas13 as the big hammer doing all the damage, but that might not be the case; we found that Cas13 and Csx28 are working together to effectively extinguish a virus.”

“When you read this paper you think to yourself…‘what?’ This is such a weird mechanism and not the way I would have predicted that bacteria would work,” added John Lueck, PhD, assistant professor of Pharmacology and Physiology at URMC. “It is really impressive that the team identified this pore-like protein that doesn’t resemble anything else we’ve seen before, and now that we know that this mechanism exists people will start to look for it in other systems. This is exciting because in science, when you scratch the surface, you often find that there is an entirely new world behind it.”

JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.abm1184

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Cells

ARTICLE TITLE

Csx28 is a membrane pore that enhances CRISPR-Cas13b-dependent anti-phage defense

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

27-Apr-2023

Connect, unplug and do good: Wellness tips for substance use and mental health recovery

“Journey to Wellness” is a new 20-page prescription for well-being created in part by a Rutgers wellness expert

Reports and Proceedings

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

Wellness is big business, and every year millions of people commit to living happier, healthier lives. But for people with substance use and mental health disorders, the concept of wellness isn’t a typical part of recovery.

Margaret Swarbrick, professor and associate director of the Rutgers Center of Alcohol and Substance Use Studies, is working to change that. Her latest contribution, “Journey to Wellness,” is an easy-to-use 20-page guide co-created with people in recovery.

“Typically, people with mental health and substance use challenges are not involved in creating the interventions and tools that can support their recovery,” Swarbrick said. “Journey to Wellness was developed in response to this identified need.”

Many recovery programs are built around steps: Do this first for a prescribed amount of time, then proceed. Swarbrick said she wanted to make something that was more relatable and individual.

“A lot of what’s available to people in recovery is just so boring – impractical advice written by people with no lived experience,” she said. “That’s what makes Journey to Wellness so powerful.”

The guide was developed based on the lived experience of what people said had helped them to pursue and maintain recovery. The guide is organized into four sections and prioritizes taking positive action. For example, human connections are crucial to recovery; the guide’s first tip is to connect with at least one person every day who supports your wellness.

“You can connect by talking to a friend, neighbor, or co-worker, by smiling at a stranger, or through a heart-to-heart conversation with someone you care about,” the guide suggests.

Another recommendation: Unplug. “This means taking a small break, even a minute or less, to relax. Literally unplug from technology, activities or whatever is happening around you. Taking a few moments for a few deep breaths, closing your eyes or looking out a window can help you disconnect if stress is building.”

Sleep is the third tip. The fourth? Do good – for yourself and others.

These concepts might seem obvious, but for people in recovery, self-healing strategies are easy to overlook, said Swarbrick.

Journey to Wellness was created using a co-production strategy – a process of research, service design and educational materials development where people with lived experience of mental health and/or substance use challenges share decision-making power throughout all stages of the process. The concepts are based on a wellness approach Swarbrick has been developing for decades called the Wellness Model. The process of creating and piloting the guide is detailed in a recent paper published in the Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services.

The guide has been downloaded thousands of times since it was published, and the potential audience is exponentially larger, said Swarbrick. In 2020, more than 40 million Americans were living with a substance use disorder and 21 percent of adults – about 53 million people – were classified as having a mental illness, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Since then, stress and substance use have increased, attributed in part to the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath.

“There’s no perfect formula for wellness, but there are things that everyone can do each day to create their own self-care prescription,” Swarbrick said.

Trauma-informed education could improve outcomes for justice-involved Black adolescents

Rutgers study finds link between childhood trauma, risky sexual behaviors and substance misuse

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

Sexual and substance use education that incorporates knowledge about trauma could improve developmental outcomes among justice-involved Black youth, according to a Rutgers study published in the journal Children and Youth Services Review.

“For black adolescents in the justice system, childhood trauma greatly influences early life choices, particularly with sex, drugs and alcohol,” said Abigail Williams-Butler, an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Social Work. “Trauma-informed sexual health education, coupled with substance misuse awareness, can improve wellbeing and might even lower rates of incarceration for these youth.”

To determine how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) influenced the age of sexual debut (first intercourse), and substance use initiation (first experience with marijuana or alcohol) among incarcerated Black adolescents, Williams-Butler and Tyriesa Howard, an assistant professor of social work in the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, examined data from the Northwestern Juvenile Project (NJP).

Launched in 1995, the NJP was created at Northwestern University to assess the mental health needs and outcomes of youth after they entered the juvenile justice system.

A total of 368 Black adolescents (52.7 percent female) between ages 11 and 17 arrested in Cook County, Illinois, were surveyed as part of the NJP. Respondents self-reported history of sexual activity, substance use and adverse childhood experiences – traumas such as emotional, physical or sexual abuse; neglect; and household dysfunction (like an incarcerated relative).

Using this original data, Williams-Butler, Howard and colleagues conducted analyses to determine the effects of adverse childhood experiences on sexual debut, substance use initiation and engagement in sex under the influence.

What the researchers found was shocking: 97 percent of participants reported at least one adverse childhood experience and 82 percent reported a sexual debut before turning 15. More than 10 percent said they used alcohol or cannabis before they turned 11.

The researchers also found having a history of adverse childhood experiences influenced whether respondents had engaged in sex under the influence of drugs or alcohol, suggesting that childhood trauma influences substance use behaviors that contribute to risky sexual behaviors.

“What this data demonstrates is the need to include discussions about trauma in sexual health education,” said Howard. “For this population, sexual health needs to emphasize what people’s lived experiences look like and be intentional and direct about post-traumatic growth.”

While sexuality education curriculum varies widely by state, most programs tend to avoid discussions related to trauma, Williams-Butler said. This oversight is problematic for justice-involved youth, especially those arrested for activities that “may be seen as traumatic within themselves, such as engaging in survival sex …or running away from physical violence in their home caused by childhood victimization,” the researchers wrote.

Bringing a trauma-informed approach to sexuality education “honors their experiences – whether they are good, bad or really ugly – and acknowledges them in the rehabilitation process,” said Howard.

Williams-Butler said she hopes this research will eventually help expand trauma-informed adolescent sexual health programming, which in turn could reduce sexual harm, unplanned and unwanted pregnancies and sexual disease.

JOURNAL

Children and Youth Services Review

DOI

10.1016/j.childyouth.2023.106847

ARTICLE TITLE

Adverse Childhood Experiences, sexual debut and substance use among Black justice-involved youth: The imperative of trauma-informed sexuality education

Paternal incarceration complicates college plans for Black youth

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

Most Gen Z young people are characterized as ambitious and forward-thinking, believing all things are possible. But what if you are a teen whose father is, or has been, in prison? How does that affect your outlook on life? How does that affect your optimism in regard to going to college and completing your degree?

University of Notre Dame professors Anna Haskins, the Andrew V. Tackes Associate Professor of Sociology and associate director of Notre Dame’s Initiative on Race and Resilience, and Joel Mittleman, assistant professor of sociology, along with the University of Maryland’s Wade Jacobsen, used data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) to determine how 15-year-old children of incarcerated fathers view their own educational futures.

In the study, “Optimism and Obstacles: Racialized Constraints in College Attitudes and Expectations Among Teens of the Prison Boom,” recently published in the journal Sociology of Education, the researchers found that although teens with incarcerated fathers were optimistic about their futures and fully committed to the importance of a college degree, they had lower expectations of actually completing college — and this was especially true for impacted Black youth.

Of the 3,205 youth who responded to the FFCWS survey, about 60 percent of the teens in the sample who experienced paternal incarceration reported that college graduation is very likely, an additional 37 percent reported it as being somewhat likely and 3 percent said it was unlikely.

Their findings, the researchers said, point to the complexity of contemporary teens’ college-related attitudes in the wake of the “prison boom,” the era of mass incarceration in the United States between 1970 and 2010. This 40-year period has resulted in nearly half of Americans reporting that they have had an immediate family member in prison or jail, including more than 2 million children who currently have an incarcerated parent and 10 million children who have had a parent imprisoned at some point in their lives.

Scholars estimate that 1 in 4 Black children, 1 in 10 Latino children and 1 in 25 white children experience parental incarceration by their early teens, the study said. The researchers’ work focused primarily on incarcerated fathers because 93 percent of incarcerated parents are men.

“This research looks at a sample of children that I have followed since they were born,” Haskins said. “I have looked at the impact of a father’s incarceration on them at age 3, 5, 9 and now 15. We know the effects on them as children, but we wanted to see if — and how — those effects continue. And what we’re seeing is that the effects continue to persist into early adulthood.”

Mittleman added that research has already shown that parental incarceration has negative impacts on children’s academic performance beginning at a very young age. “What our study shows is that — even after taking all of those negative impacts into account — the stigma of incarceration itself seems to limit the kind of academic future that Black teens can imagine for themselves,” he said.

Haskins explained that most education research focuses on the tangible consequences of parental incarceration, such as graduation rates and GPAs. “This study examined the psychosocial measures — in other words, how might parental imprisonment impact the way in which teens see their future,” she said.

“Because our criminal legal system is so racialized, it’s not surprising to find this sort of calibrating downward of one’s expectations for oneself,” Haskins said. “But this limits [the student’s] potential and truncates the educational trajectory for this next generation of young people, without them having done anything wrong. And that’s not what we want for them as a society.

“The spillover stigma of familial incarceration can be very stunting for young people,” Haskins continued. “And when you think about it, a college education has massive implications for social mobility and later success in life.”

The impacts of the prison boom are long-lasting, Haskins said, and are influencing more consequential educational life decisions. She suggested two things to help reduce that impact: further research and additional resources targeted toward the most impacted populations.

“We need to encourage more research to be done that considers the role of the criminal legal system and how it impacts educational trajectories,” Haskins said. “And if we have Black students with an incarcerated parent, then high school or college counselors can do a little more work in trying to shore up other avenues or other types of support that can bolster them, to help them see their educational futures differently.”

This is something Haskins hopes her research — and further research — can do to help encourage the next generation of college-bound students, regardless of what their parents have done or their time spent in prison.

“Our Notre Dame mission of advancing justice and addressing inequality — walking with those that are struggling — is truly important to me,” Haskins concluded. “It speaks to families that are touched by the criminal legal system in all of their humanity.”

Contact: Tracy DeStazio, assistant director of media relations, 574-631-9958 or tdestazi@nd.edu

JOURNAL

Sociology of Education

DOI

10.1177/00380407231167412

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Case study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Optimism and Obstacles: Racialized Constraints in College Attitudes and Expectations Among Teens of the Prison Boom

6% of nations provide for citizens in just, sustainable manner

Study measures ecological and social impact of water, carbon use

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers at The Ohio State University have developed a framework for quantifying how well countries around the world are doing at providing adequate food, energy and water to their citizens without exceeding nature’s capacity to meet those needs.

They found that only 6% of 178 countries provide for all their citizens in an ecologically sustainable way in both carbon sequestration and water consumption.

The study found that while 67% of nations operate safely and sustainably in regard to water use, only 9% do in regard to carbon sequestration, or reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.

The study showed the United States was among the majority of countries that was able to safely and justly provide water to its citizens. While it provides for its citizens in regard to carbon use, it is not doing so in an ecologically sustainable manner.

The study was published recently in the journal One Earth.

For a country to be self-sufficient, its population needs access to food, water and energy, resources that can often only be provided by the surrounding ecosystem. Yet because human activities tend to cause unintended side effects like global warming or ozone depletion, said Bhavik Bakshi, co-author of the study and a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Ohio State, it’s imperative that experts look for ways to develop society in an ecologically sustainable manner. At the same time, in order to be socially just, countries need to secure resources to meet the basic needs of all of its citizens.

“Most engineering disciplines traditionally ignore the role that nature plays in supporting our activities and more broadly, our well-being,“ said Bakshi, who has been working to advance the concept of sustainable engineering – the practice of designing products or systems with nature-positive decisions in mind – for decades. “In this study, we sought to ensure we could quantify these challenges in a way engineers could use to make better decisions.”

This study’s framework was created using a system called the framework of planetary boundaries and the concept of a “safe and just operating space,” which identifies a country’s ecological ceiling, or the scope human activities must work within to reduce the risk of causing irreparable damage to the Earth.

Ideally, human activities should exist between the limits of a society’s ecological ceiling and its social foundation, a boundary that describes the resources necessary to avoid critical human deprivation of food, water or energy, said Bakshi.

“If you are exceeding the ecological ceiling, then you're not sustainable from an environmental perspective,” he said. “If you’re below the social foundation, then you’re not meeting basic human needs, and that can be frustrating from an equity point of view.”

Using recent water and carbon sequestration data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and other international agencies, Bakshi and his co-author and former PhD student Yazeed Aleissa analyzed how the needs of 178 nations around the world stacked up against their regions’ ecosystems.

The team found that the majority of countries emit far more than their national ecosystem can handle in terms of carbon, but tend to operate close to their water supply limits.

Sometimes countries do not have much of a choice. Findings showed that 37% of countries do not have the ability to provide for their citizens in a safe and just way in terms of carbon sequestration, and 10% lack the ability to do that with regard to water.

While the socioeconomic status of countries is often related to how well they can provide for their citizens in a sustainable manner, it doesn’t always work that way, the researchers said. “There are rich countries that are doing well and there are also some poor countries that are doing well, but the reasons for their successes are very different,” Bakshi said.

These differences often come down to how a nation deals with supply and demand.

Take Canada, a large, rich country with a relatively low population that has a large supply of natural capital like forests and lakes that can capture carbon. Because it has more than enough resources for its population, consumption levels would meet the safe and just limits of the framework.

On the other hand, poor countries such as Gabon have adequate natural capital to support more activities that improve human well-being, Bakshi said.

Other countries, such as those in the Middle East, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, cannot meet safe and just requirements for carbon because they lack vegetation to help carbon sequestration – capturing the carbon the country emits. Essentially, they need to rely more on carbon capture technologies and global trade.

Despite the study’s potentially bleak outlook, the researchers believe their work offers a glimmer of hope in combating the environmental risks of human development. The team’s results imply that many nations could secure the necessary resources they need to thrive at a much lower demand than current levels suggest.

One way to do this would be to adopt more renewable energy resources, introduce more plant-based diets into our food cycles, and change the way we produce certain goods and services to develop a sustainable circular economy instead of a linear one, said Bakshi.

Furthermore, if implemented when considering future engineering projects, the study suggests the framework could be used to guide technology, policy and trade decisions to better assist nations to meet their needs in a more safe and just fashion.

“From a positive perspective, our work provides opportunities for engineers and other professions to innovate and come up with new ways of doing things right,” said Bakshi. “Whoever is going to figure that out is going to be the future of a more sustainable and just world.”

Contact: Bhavik Bakshi, Bakshi.2@osu.edu

Written by: Tatyana Woodall, Woodall.52@osu.ed

JOURNAL

One Earth

DOI

10.1016/j.oneear.2023.03.008

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Possible but rare: Safe and just satisfaction of national human needs in terms of ecosystem services

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

28-Apr-2023

New bean genome unveils potential to boost food security and resilience in drought-prone regions

Results pave way for genetic improvements of native legume to promote widespread cultivation that could yield nutritional and economic benefits

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INTERNATIONAL LIVESTOCK RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Lablab in bloom — IMAGE: LABLAB IN BLOOM view more
CREDIT: CHRIS JONES/ILRI

NAIROBI, Kenya, 20 April 2023_An international team of researchers, led by Africans, has fully sequenced the genome of a climate resilient bean that could bolster food security in drought-prone regions.

The sequencing of the hyacinth bean or ‘lablab bean’ [Lablab purpureus] paves the way for wider cultivation of the crop, bringing nutritional and economic benefits, as well as much needed diversity to the global food system.

The plant is native to Africa and is cultivated throughout the tropics producing highly nutritious beans, which are used for food and livestock feed. It’s extremely drought-resilient and thrives in a range of environments and conditions, contributing to food and economic security, and improving soil fertility by fixing nitrogen. Lablab is also used medicinally in some areas and contains bioactive compounds with

Diversifying the global food system

The lablab bean is one of a long list of ‘orphan crops’: indigenous species that play an important role in local nutrition and livelihoods, but that receive little attention from breeders and researchers.

The three major crops that currently provide over 40 percent of global calorie intake – wheat, rice, and corn – receive the bulk of breeding and crop improvement efforts. With so little diversity in crop cultivation, the global food system is vulnerable to environmental and social instabilities. Underutilised crops like lablab hold the key to diversified and climate-resilient food systems and genome-assisted breeding is one promising strategy to improve their productivity and adoption.

Oluwaseyi Shorinola, another of the study’s lead authors from the International Livestock Research Institute, and a visiting scientist at the John Innes Centre in the United Kingdom, said, “The first green revolution was achieved with major crops like wheat and rice. Orphan crops like lablab could pave the way for the next green revolution.”

African-led research

The research process itself was ground-breaking not only for its inclusivity but also for its leadership by African scientists. “Although many African indigenous crops have been sequenced in the past few years, in most of that work African scientists have been underrepresented, and when we’ve been involved we have been in the back seat,” said Meki Shehabu, another co-author of the study and a scientist at ILRI in Ethiopia. “What makes this project special is that it is led by African scientists, in collaboration with scientists from international institutes.”

Notes for Editors

For further information and interviews with Chris Jones or Meki Shehabu at the International Livestock Research Institute, please contact: David Aronson, Media Relations, d.aronson@cgiar.org +254 717 868916.
The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) works with partners worldwide to enhance the roles that livestock play in food security and poverty alleviation, principally in Africa and Asia. ILRI’s mission is to improve food and nutritional security and to reduce poverty in developing countries through research for efficient, safe and sustainable use of livestock—ensuring better lives through livestock. www.ilri.org
The University of Southampton drives original thinking, turns knowledge into action and impact, and creates solutions to the world’s challenges. We are among the top 100 institutions globally (QS World University Rankings 2023). Our academics are leaders in their fields, forging links with high-profile international businesses and organisations, and inspiring a 22,000-strong community of exceptional students, from over 135 countries worldwide. Through our high-quality education, the University helps students on a journey of discovery to realise their potential and join our global network of over 200,000 alumni. www.southampton.ac.uk

The John Innes Centre is an independent, international centre of excellence in plant science and microbiology. Our mission is to generate knowledge of plants and microbes through innovative research, to train scientists for the future, to apply our knowledge of nature’s diversity to benefit agriculture, the environment, human health, and wellbeing.

JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-023-37489

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Lab-produced tissue samples

ARTICLE TITLE

Chromosome-level genome assembly and population genomic resource to accelerate orphan crop lablab breeding

New bean genome unveils potential to boost food security in drought-prone regions

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON
An international team of researchers has fully sequenced the genome of a climate resilient bean that could bolster food security in drought-prone regions.
The sequencing of the hyacinth bean or ‘lablab bean’ [Lablab purpureus] paves the way for wider cultivation of the crop, bringing nutritional and economic benefits, as well as much needed diversity to the global food system.
The plant is native to Africa and is cultivated throughout the tropics producing highly nutritious beans, which are used for food and livestock feed. It’s extremely drought-resilient and thrives in a range of environments and conditions, contributing to food and economic security, and improving soil fertility by fixing nitrogen. Lablab is also used medicinally in some areas and contains bioactive compounds with pharmacological potential.
The plant’s adaptability suggests high genetic diversity, which means it's possible to select different adaptive genotypes for different environments and climatic challenges. But lablab’s potential for genetic improvement to boost its productivity and facilitate wider cultivation – especially in drought-prone areas – has yet to be fully exploited.
“When it comes to valuing a crop, people often focus on its global market value in US dollars,” said Chris Jones, Program Leader for Feed and Forage Development at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) based in Kenya, and one of the lead authors of a new study in Nature Communications that shares the findings of the work. “However, for farmers who struggle to produce enough food, the value of a crop like lablab is incredibly high. Although it may be cultivated on a smaller scale compared to major crops, its impact on food security can be significant, and we need to recognize that.”

Important genetic traits

The researchers identified the genomic location of important agronomic traits relating to yield and seed/plant size. They documented the organisation of the trypsin inhibitor genes, which inhibit a key enzyme in the digestion process in humans. This provides opportunities for targeted breeding to reduce these anti-nutritional properties.
They also tracked the history of lablab’s domestication, confirming that this occurred in parallel, in two different places. Mark Chapman, another lead author of the study and Associate Professor at the University of Southampton, said: “This is an exciting finding, and it opens the door to studying whether agronomic traits can evolve more than once using the same genes, or if different pathways can evolve to give the same outcome. Compiled, this information offers a valuable resource for genetic improvement.”

Diversifying the global food system

The lablab bean is one of a long list of ‘orphan crops’: indigenous species that play an important role in local nutrition and livelihoods, but that receive little attention from breeders and researchers.
The three major crops that currently provide over 40 percent of global calorie intake – wheat, rice, and corn – receive the bulk of breeding and crop improvement efforts. With so little diversity in crop cultivation, the global food system is vulnerable to environmental and social instabilities. Underutilised crops like lablab hold the key to diversified and climate-resilient food systems, and genome-assisted breeding is one promising strategy to improve their productivity and adoption.
Oluwaseyi Shorinola, another of the study’s lead authors from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), and a visiting scientist at the John Innes Centre in the United Kingdom, said, “The first green revolution was achieved with major crops like wheat and rice. Orphan crops like lablab could pave the way for the next green revolution.”

African-led research

The research process itself was also ground-breaking for its inclusivity. “Although many African indigenous crops have been sequenced in the past few years, in most of that work African scientists have been underrepresented, and when we’ve been involved we have been in the back seat,” said Meki Shehabu, another co-author of the study and a scientist at ILRI in Ethiopia. “What makes this project special is that it is led by African scientists, in collaboration with scientists from international institutes.”
To make this happen, the project had to overcome contextual constraints such as the continent’s relative lack of sequencing facilities and high-performance computing infrastructure, as well as the bioinformatics capacity required. The researchers addressed these challenges by using new low-cost portable sequencing platforms, carrying out in-depth capacity building (including an Africa-based eight-month residential bioinformatics training), and working carefully to facilitate equitable international collaboration.
Looking forward, the team anticipates that the resource will inspire genetic improvement work on lablab – and other under-utilised indigenous crops – with the aim of increasing food and feed availability on the African continent and beyond.
Chromosome-level genome assembly and population genomic resource to accelerate orphan crop lablab breeding is available online in Nature Communications.

JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-023-37489-7

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Cells

ARTICLE TITLE

Chromosome-level genome assembly and population genomic resource to accelerate orphan crop lablab breeding

Artificial photosynthesis for environmentally friendly food production

TUM researchers produce important amino acid from greenhouse gas CO2

Peer-Reviewed Publication

TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH (TUM)

Growing demand for food in the world
Biotechnological process via methanol as intermediate product
Less ground required than for plant cultivation

Ensuring the supply of food to the constantly growing world population and protecting the environment at the same time are often conflicting objectives. Now researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have successfully developed a method for the synthetic manufacture of nutritional protein using a type of artificial photosynthesis. The animal feed industry is the primary driver of high demand for large volumes of nutritional protein, which is also suitable for use in meat substitute products.

A group led by Prof. Volker Sieber at the TUM Campus Straubing for Biotechnology and Sustainability (TUMCS) has succeeded in producing the amino acid L-alanine, an essential building block in proteins, from the environmentally harmful gas CO2. Their indirect biotechnological process involves methanol as an intermediate. Until now, protein for animal feed has been typically produced in the southern hemisphere with large-scale agricultural space requirements and negative consequences for biodiversity.

The CO2, which is removed from the atmosphere, is first turned into methanol using green electricity and hydrogen. The new method converts this intermediate into L-alanine in a multi-stage process using synthetic enzymes; the method is extremely effective and generates very high yields. L-alanine is one of the most important components of protein, which is essential to the nutrition of both humans and animals.

Prof. Sieber, of the TUM Professorship for Chemistry of Biogenic Resources, explains: "Compared to growing plants, this method requires far less space to create the same amount of L-alanine, when the energy used comes from solar or wind power sources. The more efficient use of space means a kind of artificial photosynthesis can be used to produce the same amount of foodstuffs on significantly fewer acres. This paves the way for a smaller ecological footprint in agriculture."

Bioeconomy and hydrogen economy in combination

The manufacture of L-alanine is only the first step for the scientists. "We also want to produce other amino acids from CO2 using renewable energy and to further increase efficiency in the realization process," says co-author Vivian Willers, who developed the process as a doctoral candidate at the TUM Campus Straubing. The researchers add that the project is a good example of how bioeconomy and hydrogen economy in combination can make it possible to achieve more sustainability.

Publication:

The article "Cell-free enzymatic L-alanine synthesis from green methanol" recently appeared in the journal Chem Catalysis from Cell Press.
Vivian Pascal Willers, Manuel Döring, Barbara Beer, Volker Sieber. Cell-free enzymatic L-alanine synthesis from green methanol. Chem Catalysis, Volume 3, Issue 3, 2023, 100502.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.checat.2022.100502

Further Information:

Chair of Chemistry of Biogenic Resources https://cbr.cs.tum.de/?lang=en
TUM School of Life Sciences https://www.ls.tum.de/en/ls/home/
Background on photosynthesis https://www.150.tum.de/en/anniversary-story/photosynthesis/
Agricultural Sciences https://www.ls.tum.de/en/ls/studies/courses-and-programs/agricultural-and-horticultural-sciences-bsc/
Study programs at TUM School of Life Sciences https://www.ls.tum.de/en/ls/studies/application/

Editorial service:

Image Download: http://go.tum.de/058005

JOURNAL

Chem Catalysis

DOI

10.1016/j.checat.2022.100502

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Cells

ARTICLE TITLE

Cell-free enzymatic L-alanine synthesis from green methanol