Cas10 relieves host growth arrest to facilitate spacer retention during type III-A CRISPR-Cas immunity.

Cells from all kingdoms of life can enter growth arrest in unfavorable environmental conditions. Key to this process are mechanisms enabling recovery from this state. Staphylococcal type III-A CRISPR-Cas loci encode the Cas10 complex that uses a guide RNA to locate complementary viral transcripts and start an immune response.

The Cas10 nuclease activity relieves host dormancy to facilitate spacer acquisition and retention during type III-A CRISPR immunity.

A hallmark of CRISPR immunity is the acquisition of short viral DNA sequences, known as spacers, that are transcribed into guide RNAs to recognize complementary sequences. The staphylococcal type III-A CRISPR-Cas system uses guide RNAs to locate viral transcripts and start a response that displays two mechanisms of immunity. When immunity is triggered by an early-expressed phage RNA, degradation of viral ssDNA can cure the host from infection.

Predicting phosphorus accumulation and proposing conditions needed for an algal-based phosphorus uptake process.

Algal-based waste stabilisation ponds (WSP) are a common wastewater treatment system for small communities but have poor phosphorus removal. Under certain conditions algae in WSPs will perform 'luxury uptake' increasing their phosphorus content to over 3% (gP/gSS) by storing polyphosphate. For the first time in the literature this paper presents a systematic study which determines the conditions needed to maximise phosphorus accumulation within WSP biomass taking into account the interactions between key variables.

Investigation of UV light treatment (254 nm) on the reduction of aflatoxin M1 in skim milk and degradation products after treatment.

This study investigates the reduction of aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) in skim milk by using ultraviolet light at 254 nm and the effects of influencing factors on the efficacy including treatment time (min), depth of samples (mm), contamination level (μg L), stirring, temperature, and fat content in milk. The colour and pH of milk samples were measured to evaluate the influence of the treatment on these values. It was found that short-wave ultraviolet radiation (UVC) reduced up to 50% of AFM1 in milk after 20 min of treatment regardless of the initial AFM1 contamination level.