Environmental impact assessment due to the intake of uranium contained in surface waters in a semi-arid region in Brazil.

In Santa Quitéria City, part of the population uses surface water for potation. These waters do not undergo any treatment before consumption. As the region has a deposit of uranium, assessing water quality becomes important.

Heterologous expression of proteorhodopsin enhances H2 production in Escherichia coli when endogenous Hyd-4 is overexpressed.

Proteorhodopsin (PR) is a light harvesting protein widely distributed among bacterioplankton that plays an integral energetic role in a new pathway of marine light capture. The conversion of light into chemical energy in non-chlorophyll-based bacterial systems could contribute to overcoming thermodynamic and metabolic constraints in biofuels production. In an attempt to improve biohydrogen production yields, H2 evolution catalyzed by endogenous hydrogenases, Hyd-3 and/or Hyd-4, was measured when recombinant proteorhodopsin (PR) was concomitantly expressed in Escherichia coli cells.

Peptidomics of three Bothrops snake venoms: insights into the molecular diversification of proteomes and peptidomes.

Snake venom proteomes/peptidomes are highly complex and maintenance of their integrity within the gland lumen is crucial for the expression of toxin activities. There has been considerable progress in the field of venom proteomics, however, peptidomics does not progress as fast, because of the lack of comprehensive venom sequence databases for analysis of MS data. Therefore, in many cases venom peptides have to be sequenced manually by MS/MS analysis or Edman degradation.

Synthetic phytochelatin surface display in Cupriavidus metallidurans CH34 for enhanced metals bioremediation.

This work describes the effects of the cell surface display of a synthetic phytochelatin in the highly metal tolerant bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans CH34. The EC20sp synthetic phytochelatin gene was fused between the coding sequences of the signal peptide (SS) and of the autotransporter β-domain of the Neisseria gonorrhoeae IgA protease precursor (IgAβ), which successfully targeted the hybrid protein toward the C. metallidurans outer membrane.

Advances and developments in strategies to improve strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and processes to obtain the lignocellulosic ethanol--a review.

The conversion of biomass into ethanol using fast, cheap, and efficient methodologies to disintegrate and hydrolyse the lignocellulosic biomass is the major challenge of the production of the second-generation ethanol. This revision describes the most relevant advances on the conversion process of lignocellulose materials into ethanol, development of new xylose-fermenting strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae using classical and modern genetic tools and strategies, elucidation of the expression of some complex industrial phenotypes, tolerance mechanisms of S. cerevisiae to lignocellulosic inhibitors, monitoring and strategies to improve fermentation processes.