BACKGROUND The basis for progressive attenuation of the effects of organic nitrates during long-term therapy (nitrate tolerance) remains controversial; proposed mechanisms include impaired nitrate bioconversion resulting in decreased release of nitric oxide (NO) from nitrates and/or increased NO clearance through a reaction with incrementally generated superoxide (O(2)(-)). METHODS AND RESULT...

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND The inherent recalcitrance of lignocellulosic biomass is one of the major economic hurdles for the production of fuels and chemicals from biomass. Additionally, lignin is recognized as having a negative impact on enzymatic hydrolysis of biomass, and as a result much interest has been placed on modifying the lignin pathway to improve bioconversion of lignocellulosic feed...

The present research investigated the enrichment of fenugreek (Trigonella foenum graceum) seed substrate with phenolic antioxidants and L-DOPA via fungal-based solid-state bioconversion (SSB) system. This approach using food grade fungus Rhizopus oligosporus, was chosen because it has been demonstrated to be effective in other seed and food substrates for improving health-relevant functionality...

BACKGROUND In order to improve the availability of biomass, the concept of growing high yield biomass with short rotations and intensive culture has been introduced. Bamboo has become a feedstock of potential interest for future energy production due to its high productivity and short rotation time. The growth age of biomass is an important factor affecting the efficiency of bioconversion and p...

Aquaculture is meant to provide fish rich in omega-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 LC-PUFA). This objective must be reached despite (1) the necessity to replace the finite and limited fish oil in feed production and (2) the increased temperature of the supply water induced by the global warming. The objective of the present paper was to determine to what extent increased water tem...

Vitamin D3 (VD3) is a fat-soluble prohormone in mammals. VD3 is inert and must be activated by hydroxylation at the C-25 and C-1α positions to exert its biological activity. We recently accomplished the bioconversion of VD3 to 25(OH)VD3 with a recombinant strain of Rhodococcus erythropolis and found that the permeability of VD3 into the cytoplasm may be the rate-limiting step of 25(OH)VD3 produ...

Waste straw biomass is an abundant renewable bioresource raw material on Earth. Its stubborn wooden cellulose structure limits lignocellulose bioconversion into value-added products (e.g., biofuel, chemicals, and agricultural products). Compared to physicochemical other preprocessing techniques, the steam explosion method, as a kind of hydrothermal was considered practical, eco-friendly, cost-e...

Bioconversion of lignocellulose by microbial fermentation is typically preceded by an acidic thermochemical pretreatment step designed to facilitate enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose. Substances formed during the pretreatment of the lignocellulosic feedstock inhibit enzymatic hydrolysis as well as microbial fermentation steps. This review focuses on inhibitors from lignocellulosic feedstocks an...

The fast growing aquatic weed water hyacinth, which is available almost yearround in the tropics and subtropics, was utilized as the chief source of cellulose for production of fuel ethanol via enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation. Fungal cellulases produced on-site by utilizing acid-alkali pretreated water hyacinth as the substrate were used as the crude enzyme source for hydrolysis of identi...

Rhodococcus sp. I24 can oxygenate indene via at least three independent enzyme activities: (i) a naphthalene inducible monooxygenase (ii) a naphthalene inducible dioxygenase, and (iii) a toluene inducible dioxygenase (TID). Pulsed field gel analysis revealed that the I24 strain harbors two megaplasmids of ∼340 and ∼50 kb. Rhodococcus sp. KY1, a derivative of the I24 strain, lacks the ∼340 kb el...