Optimized genome-wide CRISPR screening enables rapid engineering of growth-based phenotypes in Yarrowia lipolytica.

CRISPR-Cas9 functional genomic screens uncover gene targets linked to various phenotypes for metabolic engineering with remarkable efficiency. However, these genome-wide screens face a number of design challenges, including variable guide RNA activity, ensuring sufficient genome coverage, and maintaining high transformation efficiencies to ensure full library representation. These challenges are prevalent in non-conventional yeast, many of which exhibit traits that are well suited to metabolic engineering and bioprocessing.

Alternative carbon sources for the production of plant cellular agriculture: a case study on acetate.

Plant cellular agriculture aims to disrupt the way plant derived products are produced. Plant cell cultures are typically grown with sucrose as the primary carbon and energy source, but alternative carbon sources may have advantages over sucrose including less strain on food systems, lower costs, and more sustainable sourcing. Here we review carbon and energy sources that may serve as alternatives to sucrose in the cultivation of plant cell cultures.

A hybrid inorganic-biological artificial photosynthesis system for energy-efficient food production.

Artificial photosynthesis systems are proposed as an efficient alternative route to capture CO to produce additional food for growing global demand. Here a two-step CO electrolyser system was developed to produce a highly concentrated acetate stream with a 57% carbon selectivity (CO to acetate), allowing its direct use for the heterotrophic cultivation of yeast, mushroom-producing fungus and a photosynthetic green alga, in the dark without inputs from biological photosynthesis. An evaluation of nine crop plants found that carbon from exogenously supplied acetate incorporates into biomass through major metabolic pathways.

Chromatin accessibility analysis reveals distinct functions for HDAC and EZH2 activities in early appendage regeneration.

Xenopus tropicalis tadpoles have the capacity for scarless regeneration of appendages including the limb and tail. Following injury, transcriptional programs must be activated and inactivated with high spatial and temporal resolution to result in a properly patterned appendage. Functional studies have established that histone-modifying enzymes that act to close chromatin are required for regeneration, but the genomic regions sensitive to these activities are not fully established.