Hazards from Legionella *
Jamie Bartram, Rachel Baum, Peter A. Coclanis, David M. Gute, David Kay, Stéphanie McFadyen, Katherine Pond, William Robertson, Michael J. Rouse in Routledge Handbook of Water and Health, 2015
The Legionella family (Legionellaceae) is a group of bacteria found in a wide and diverse range of environmental niches, but in particular in fresh water. In the natural environment they are heterotrophs, organisms that feed on complex organic molecules such as amino acids. To source these organic nutrients they have developed a range of different strategies. All of these strategies depend on deriving their nutrients from other organisms in either natural or anthropogenic water systems. As a result they are always part of a complex community in the environment and not easy to isolate as pure cultures in the laboratory. Another important ecological feature is that they have a general growth range of between 20 and 45 °C, but survive at both higher and lower temperatures, though 55 °C is widely regarded as the upper limit for survival (Fields et al., 2002; WHO, 2007, Chs. 1, 2).
Nutritional Composition of the Main Edible Algae
Leonel Pereira in Therapeutic and Nutritional Uses of Algae, 2018
The term “a balanced diet” of a heterotrophic organism implies the intake of essential nutrients for growth and reproduction. Some of the essential nutrients may be used for reconstruction decomposed and/or used in the production of new metabolites essential to the primary metabolism. However, there are others which cannot be produced, causing them to be obtained externally through ingestion. Among these are polyunsaturated fats, of which the most familiar are the fatty acids of omega type. These fatty acids control the cholesterol that binds to lipoproteins (carriers of these fats in blood plasma), that is, the balance between HDL / High Density Lipoprotein, or good cholesterol, and LDL / Low Density Lipoprotein, the bad cholesterol. The first should be kept at a high rate, the second at a low rate. HDL carries excess cholesterol into the bloodstream to the liver, where it is catabolized, while LDL does reverse transport, thus promoting its accumulation in tissues and organs (Pereira and Correia 2015).
Induction of Controlled Differentiation of Callus in Mosses
R. N. Chopra, Satish C. Bhatla in Bryophyte Development: Physiology and Biochemistry, 2019
Moss callus cells derived from the hybrid sporogonium were also used to study the developmental physiology as influenced by light and its various spectral components.47 In the heterogeneous nature of the morphogenetic effects of light it was shown that under red light the RNA and protein contents increased, whereas under blue light the highest chlorophyll content was observed in relation to plastid development. Blue light enhanced the amino acid metabolism, whereas red light was found to affect carbon metabolism. This had been demonstrated by the existence of heterotrophy with regard to nitrogen and sugar. As an accumulation product of nitrogen metabolism allantoin was formed, and this is a typical expression of moss callus heterotrophy. This metabolic product could be distinctly connected with purine metabolism; this was proved by feeding 14C-adenine to the culture. In darkness tryptophan content is significantly higher, whereas in white light α-aminobutyric acid and proline attain very high concentrations. In red light tyrosine was observed to be present in higher amounts in these hybrid callus cells.47 In the protonemal callus of Physcomitrium pyriforme it could be demonstrated that 14C-proline is rapidly converted to hydroxyproline. This was found to be noncovalently linked to the cell wall and could be extracted with chaotropic salts. This showed the presence of a glycoprotein rich in hydroxyproline in the callus cell wall.48
Blautia—a new functional genus with potential probiotic properties?
Published in Gut Microbes, 2021
Xuemei Liu, Bingyong Mao, Jiayu Gu, Jiaying Wu, Shumao Cui, Gang Wang, Jianxin Zhao, Hao Zhang, Wei Chen
Blautia species are strictly anaerobic, non-motile, 1.0–1.5 × 1.0–3.0 μm in size, usually spherical or oval, and appear in pairs or strands, with most strains being sporeless. The optimum temperature and pH for most Blautia strains are 37°C and 7.0, respectively.11 Some species such as B. producta possess both heterotrophic and autotrophic properties and can use CO, H2/CO2, and carbohydrates as energy sources.34 Carbohydrate utilization experiments have shown that all Blautia strains can use glucose, but different strains showed different abilities to use sucrose, fructose, lactose, maltose, rhamnose, and raffinose (Table 2). The final products of glucose fermentation by Blautia are acetic acid, succinic acid, lactic acid, and ethanol, and the main biochemical tests have revealed negative results for lecithin, lipase, catalase, and indole. The long-chain fatty acids produced by Blautia strains are classified into linearly saturated and monounsaturated types, with C14:0, C16:0, and C16:00 dimethyl acetal fatty acids as the main species. The GC content of Blautia DNA is 37–47 mol%, and the type species of this genus is B. coccoides.11
Neglecting the ecosystemic dimension of life hinders efficient environmental protection from radiation and other hazards
Published in International Journal of Radiation Biology, 2022
Perhaps, the easiest understandable example of collaborative interaction betwen species in ecosystems is the trophic interdependance which promotes bioregeneration: autotrophic photosynthtic species transform inorganic (CO2, minerals, …) into organic matter (mostly carbohydrates) that is used as a food source by heterotrophic animal species, the autotrophs also regenerate the O2, required by the heterotrophs respiration, from the CO2 these later produce whislt oxydising the organic matter that they ingest as food. Thus, the ecosystem features a bioregeneration capacity through an autotrophs-heteroptrophs cycling where the by-products from autotrophs are used by heterotrophs as ressources and vice versa.
Multistep approach to control microbial fouling of historic building materials by aerial phototrophs
Published in Biofouling, 2019
Paulina Nowicka-Krawczyk, Joanna Żelazna-Wieczorek, Anna Koziróg, Anna Otlewska, Katarzyna Rajkowska, Małgorzata Piotrowska, Beata Gutarowska, Bogumił Brycki
It is impossible to halt the gradual degradation and deterioration of man-made objects. Their surfaces degrade with the passing of time and under the influence of physical, chemical and biological factors, no matter what material they are made of. Microorganisms promote the deterioration of such materials as a result of their role in the environment (Junier and Joseph 2017). Some are decomposers of organic matter (Güsevell and Gessner 2009), while others are pioneer organisms producing organic matter from simple mineral components by photosynthesis (Graham et al. 2009). The latter are easily spread by wind throughout the terrestrial environments of all climatic zones and colonize substrata, creating visible ‘green’ coatings (Barberousse et al. 2007; Genitsaris et al. 2011). However, from an environmental perspective, the question arises whether colonization should be considered a problem. The answer depends on our social and cultural needs. In terms of history, evidence of the changes taking place over the centuries to buildings, memorials and monuments is extremely important. Phototrophic coatings not only decrease the aesthetic value, but also in many cases accelerate the rate of deterioration. Cyanobacteria and algae are able to grow into the substratum, causing mechanical deterioration, whilst changes in the volume of cells during water accumulation or secretion also cause microdamage to the substratum (Samad and Adhikary 2008; Grbić et al. 2010; Rajkowska et al. 2014). Some authors have questioned the direct contribution of phototrophs to the biodeterioration of historic objects, claiming that they are not the primary damaging factors (Ortega-Calvo et al. 1995; Gullota et al. 2018). However, they produce and secrete organic and inorganic compounds, which have been found to affect substrata and change their chemical composition (Cutler et al. 2013). Gaylarde and Morton (1999) highlight the deterioration abilities of cyanobacteria in tropical climate zones. Moreover, aerial phototrophs, being pioneers and primary producers, provide significant organic matter input, facilitating bacterial and fungal colonization, and thus allowing successive deterioration by heterotrophic microorganisms (Ortega-Calvo et al. 1995; May et al. 2011).
Related Knowledge Centers
- Animal
- Autotroph
- Bacteria
- Carbon Dioxide
- Microbiology
- Primary Nutritional Groups
- Chemotroph
- Photoheterotroph
- Sunlight
- Photoautotrophism