Microorganisms have natural product biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) that may contain unique bioactivities for drug development and agricultural applications. However, many uncharacterized microbial BGCs remain inaccessible. Researchers at the University of Illinois' Urbana-Champaign previously demonstrated a technique that uses transcription factor bait to activate large, silent BGCs in bacteria to aid in natural product discovery. […]
Harvesting Useful Products From Microbial Growth – ScienceDaily
Ancient alchemists dreamed of turning basic materials such as lead into gold and other valuable goods. While such efforts have generally failed, researchers today have some success in extracting a variety of useful products such as aviation fuels, lubricants, solvents, food additives, and plastics from organic waste. The trick is achieved with the help of […]
The microbial life of sourdough – ScienceDaily
In a study of 500 sourdough starters on four continents, scientists gained new insights into the environmental factors that contribute to the microbial ecosystem of each sourdough starter, and how different types of microbes affect both the flavor of a sourdough and how quickly the sourdough rises. The results may surprise sourdough lovers. "We didn't […]
In kefir, microbial teamwork makes the dream work — ScienceDaily
To make kefir, it takes a team. A team of microbes. That’s the message of new research from EMBL and Cambridge University’s Patil group and collaborators, published in Nature Microbiology today. Members of the group study kefir, one of the world’s oldest fermented food products and increasingly considered to be a ‘superfood’ with many purported […]