Oligonucleotide microarrays offer a fast, high-throughput alternative for the parallel detection of microbes from virtually any sample. The application potential spreads across most sectors of life sciences, including environmental microbiology and microbial ecology; human, veterinary, food and plant diagnostics; water quality control; industrial microbiology, and so on. The past two years have...

Bacteria commonly inhabit subsurface oil reservoirs, but almost nothing is known yet about microorganisms that live in naturally occurring terrestrial oil seeps and natural asphalts that are comprised of highly recalcitrant petroleum hydrocarbons. Here we report the first survey of microbial diversity in ca. 28,000-year-old samples of natural asphalts from the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits in Los Ang...

Most microbes, including the fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans, can grow as biofilms. Biofilms confer upon microbes a range of characteristics, including an ability to colonize materials such as shunts and catheters and increased resistance to antibiotics. Here, we provide evidence that coating surfaces with a monoclonal antibody to glucuronoxylomannan, the major component of the fungal c...

Petroleum is the main energy source utilized in the world, but its availability is limited and the search for new renewable energy sources is of major interest. Biofuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel, are among the most promising sources for the substitution of fossil fuels. Biodiesel can replace petroleum diesel, as it is produced from animal fats and vegetable oils, which generate about 10% ...

The fungus Aspergillus (A.) terreus has dominated the biological production of the "blockbuster" drugs known as statins. The statins are a class of drugs that inhibit HMG-CoA reductase and lead to lower cholesterol production. The statins were initially discovered in fungi and for many years fungi were the sole source for the statins. At present, novel chemically synthesised statins are produce...

Jun Lin, Kunihiko Nishino, Marilyn C. Roberts, Marcelo Tolmasky, Rustam I. Aminov and Lixin Zhang* 1 Department of Animal Science, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA 2 Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan 3 Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seatle, WA, USA 4 Center for Applied Biotechno...

This work demonstrated the feasibility of an industrial-scale aerated static pile composting system for treating one common biowastes—soybean curd residue. The mixing ratios feedstock were optimized to achieve a carbon–nitrogen ratio and moisture level in ranges 25–35 60–70%, respectively. open-air required 6–7 months obtain mature compost. Solvita seed germination tests further confirmed matur...