Betalains are water-soluble plant pigments that are widely used as food colorants, and have a wide range of desirable biological activities, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective, anti-cancer properties. They can be produced from various plants, notably beetroot, but betalain products obtained in this way also have some undesirable properties and are difficult to standardize. A potentially attractive alternative is to use hairy root cultures. In the study reported here, we found that betalain extracts obtained from hairy root cultures of the red beetroot B. vulgaris cv. Detroit Dark Red also had higher antioxidant activity than extracts obtained from mature beetroots: six-fold higher 2,2-dyphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical scavenging ability (90.7% inhibition, EC(50) = 0.11 mg, vs 14.2% inhibition, EC(50) = 0.70 mg) and 3.28-fold higher oxygen radical absorbance capacity (4,100 microM TE/g dry extract, vs 1,250 microM TE/g dry extract). The high antioxidant activity of the hairy root extracts was associated with increased concentrations (more than 20-fold) of total phenolic concomitant compounds, which may have synergistic effects with betalains. The presence of 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, caffeic acid, catechin hydrate, and epicatechin were detected in both types of extract, but at different concentrations. Rutin was only present at high concentration (1.096 mg.g(-1) dry extract) in betalain extracts from the hairy root cultures, whereas chlorogenic acid was only detected at measurable concentrations in extracts from intact plants.
"Hairy root" systems, obtained by transforming plant tissues with the "natural genetic engineer" Agrobacterium rhizogenes, have been known for more than three decades. To date, hairy root cultures have been obtained from more than 100 plant species, including several endangered medicinal plants, affording opportunities to produce important phytochemicals and proteins in eco-friendly conditions. Diverse strategies can be applied to improve the yields of desired metabolites and to produce recombinant proteins. Furthermore, recent advances in bioreactor design and construction allow hairy root-based technologies to be scaled up while maintaining their biosynthetic potential. This review highlights recent progress in the field and outlines future prospects for exploiting the potential utility of hairy root cultures as "chemical factories" for producing bioactive substances.
Kluyveromyces marxianus is capable of converting lactose into ethyl acetate offering a chance for an economical reuse of whey. The microbial formation of ethyl acetate as a bulk product calls for an aerobic process and, thus, the highly volatile ethyl acetate is discharged from the aerated bioreactor. This stripping process was modeled and investigated experimentally. The stripping rate was proportional to the gas flow and nearly independent of the stirring rate since the stripping was governed by the absorption capacity of the exhaust gas rather than the phase transfer. Cooling the exhaust gas did not noticeably influence the stripping. One batch experiment is presented in detail to demonstrate the formation of ethyl acetate by K. maxianus DSM 5422 on whey. Further batch experiments showed that a substantial formation of ethyl acetate only occurred when the yeast growth was limited by a lack of trace elements. The highest product yield observed was 0.25 g ethyl acetate per g lactose which is nearly 50% of the theoretical maximum.
Plant tissue and organ cultures in vitro usually face technological challenges. When submerged cultivation of plant cells in a controlled environment is desired, the characteristic growth morphology and physiology of differentiated organ cultures present a problem in process scale‐up. Temporary immersion systems (TIS) were developed several decades ago. These systems are providing the most natural environment for in vitro culture of plant shoots and seedlings. Over the past few years, TIS have been recognized as a perspective technology for plant micropropagation, production of plant‐derived secondary metabolites, expression of foreign proteins, and potential solutions in phytoremediation. Nowadays, several TIS, operating on similar or divergent technological principles, have been developed and successfully applied in the cultivation of various plant in vitro systems, including somatic embryos and transformed root cultures. In this article, the operational principle and technological design of the most popular TIS are reviewed. In addition, recent examples of the application of temporary immersion technology for in vitro cultivation of plant tissue and organ cultures at laboratory and pilot scales are discussed. Finally, future prospects and challenges to the industrial realization of that fast‐developing technique are outlined.
Current global environmental issues raise unavoidable challenges for our use of natural resources. Supplying the human population with clean water is becoming a global problem. Numerous organic and inorganic impurities in municipal, industrial, and agricultural waters, ranging from microplastics to high nutrient loads and heavy metals, endanger our nutrition and health. The development of efficient wastewater treatment technologies and circular economic approaches is thus becoming increasingly important. The biomass production of microalgae using industrial wastewater offers the possibility of recycling industrial residues to create new sources of raw materials for energy and material use. This review discusses algae‐based wastewater treatment technologies with a special focus on industrial wastewater sources, the potential of non‐conventional extremophilic (thermophilic, acidophilic, and psychrophilic) microalgae, and industrial algae‐wastewater treatment concepts that have already been put into practice.
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