Biotechnology/Systems biology

Proteins form the basis of all processes in living cells. In order to understand these processes, it is important to identify the proteins involved and also to recognize when they deviate from the norm and thus possibly cause diseases. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich have now developed a method with which large quantities of proteins can be analyzed with unprecedented reliability. So far, mass spectrometry (MS) has been the bioanalytical method of choice for identifying proteins.

Big news in stem cell research in farm animals: Together with colleagues from Great Britain and China, scientists from the Friedrich Löffler Institute (FLI) in Mariensee, Germany, have created a novel variant of pluripotent stem cells in pigs. Using a special nutrient medium, the researchers have obtained embryonic stem cell lines (ES) with "expanded potential" from pig embryos (Expanded Potential Stem Cells, EPSCs).

Many regions of the world's oceans are overfished. For some fish species, studies predict population collapse within the next 30 years. At the same time, fish and seafood are the staple foods in many regions, and demand continues to be high across the globe. Aquafarms, in which fish or seafood is bred, are therefore becoming increasingly important. However, the efficiency of aquafarm rearing is poor. A German research cooperation now wants to change this.

The history of surfactants began more than 4,500 years ago with the production of the first soap-like substance from olive oil and wood ash. Today, it is impossible to imagine everyday life without these active washing substances, which can be found in practically every detergent. As emulsifiers they have even found their way into food, because surface-active agents reduce the interfacial tension between two phases and make it possible to blend water and oil. Modern surfactants are also usually biodegradable.

Tailoring peptides is a declared goal of many researchers. Scientists are emulating nature in which microorganisms are able to assemble tiny protein molecules like on an assembly line. Researchers at Frankfurt's Goethe University had already taken an important step in peptide synthesis last year.

DNA is not only the carrier of genetic information. For some biotechnologists, the molecule is also a material with fascinating properties - for example, for bioengineers working with DNA origami. Biomechanics at the TU Munich have now created a promising application for pharmaceutical development.

Out of carbon dioxide and solar energy, land plants produce biomass, which contains valuable building blocks for the bioeconomy. It is easy to forget that algae also remove enormous amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere - about as much as the entire land vegetation. Algae primarily produce multiple sugars, whose degradation products are important food sources for numerous marine organisms. One of these degradation processes has now been investigated by an international team of researchers.

Carbon dioxide forms the basis for many organisms to produce carbon compounds through their metabolism. Plants and certain bacteria use photosynthesis, other bacteria use chemosynthesis. However, animals do not possess this ability and have therefore formed symbioses with protozoa. The bacterium Kentron has also been regarded as a chemosynthetic symbiont of the ciliate Kentrophoros.

In 2017, the German specialty chemicals group Evonik and the Dutch company DSM jointly founded Veramaris. Now the young joint venture has started industrial bioproduction and has commissioned what it says is the world's largest plant for the fermentative production of omega-3 fatty acids in Blair (USA).

Worldwide, an estimated 100,000 animal species produce toxins. Some serve to protect against predators, others to hunt prey. What many poisons have in common is that they can have the opposite effect in small doses: Important antihypertensives, anticoagulants and pain killers are based on animal toxins, and a toxin of the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis is making waves as a biological insecticide. Unlike snakes or spiders, little is known about the toxins of predatory flies.