Adding tetrahydrofuran to dilute acid pretreatment provides new insights into substrate changes that greatly enhance biomass deconstruction by and fungal enzymes.

Background: Consolidated bioprocessing (CBP) by anaerobes, such as which combine enzyme production, hydrolysis, and fermentation are promising alternatives to historical economic challenges of using fungal enzymes for biological conversion of lignocellulosic biomass. However, limited research has integrated CBP with real pretreated biomass, and understanding how pretreatment impacts subsequent deconstruction by CBP vs. fungal enzymes can provide valuable insights into CBP and suggest other novel biomass deconstruction strategies.

Overcoming factors limiting high-solids fermentation of lignocellulosic biomass to ethanol.

Simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) of solid biomass can reduce the complexity and improve the economics of lignocellulosic ethanol production by consolidating process steps and reducing end-product inhibition of enzymes compared with separate hydrolysis and fermentation (SHF). However, a long-standing limitation of SSF has been too low ethanol yields at the high-solids loading of biomass needed during fermentation to realize sufficiently high ethanol titers favorable for more economical ethanol recovery. Here, we illustrate how competing factors that limit ethanol yields during high-solids fermentations are overcome by integrating newly developed cosolvent-enhanced lignocellulosic fractionation (CELF) pretreatment with SSF.

Biological lignocellulose solubilization: comparative evaluation of biocatalysts and enhancement via cotreatment.

Background: Feedstock recalcitrance is the most important barrier impeding cost-effective production of cellulosic biofuels. Pioneer commercial cellulosic ethanol facilities employ thermochemical pretreatment and addition of fungal cellulase, reflecting the main research emphasis in the field. However, it has been suggested that it may be possible to process cellulosic biomass without thermochemical pretreatment using thermophilic, cellulolytic bacteria.

Co-solvent pretreatment reduces costly enzyme requirements for high sugar and ethanol yields from lignocellulosic biomass.

We introduce a new pretreatment called co-solvent-enhanced lignocellulosic fractionation (CELF) to reduce enzyme costs dramatically for high sugar yields from hemicellulose and cellulose, which is essential for the low-cost conversion of biomass to fuels. CELF employs THF miscible with aqueous dilute acid to obtain up to 95 % theoretical yield of glucose, xylose, and arabinose from corn stover even if coupled with enzymatic hydrolysis at only 2 mgenzyme  gglucan (-1) . The unusually high saccharification with such low enzyme loadings can be attributed to a very high lignin removal, which is supported by compositional analysis, fractal kinetic modeling, and SEM imaging.

The effects of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) coating on magnesium degradation and cytocompatibility with human embryonic stem cells for potential neural applications.

Magnesium (Mg) is a promising conductive metallic biomaterial due to its desirable mechanical properties for load bearing and biodegradability in human body. Controlling the rapid degradation of Mg in physiological environment continues to be the key challenge toward clinical translation. In this study, we investigated the effects of conductive poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) coating on the degradation behavior of Mg substrates and their cytocompatibility.

An in vitro mechanism study on the proliferation and pluripotency of human embryonic stems cells in response to magnesium degradation.

Magnesium (Mg) is a promising biodegradable metallic material for applications in cellular/tissue engineering and biomedical implants/devices. To advance clinical translation of Mg-based biomaterials, we investigated the effects and mechanisms of Mg degradation on the proliferation and pluripotency of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). We used hESCs as the in vitro model system to study cellular responses to Mg degradation because they are sensitive to toxicants and capable of differentiating into any cell types of interest for regenerative medicine.

Effects of magnesium on growth and proliferation of human embryonic stem cells.

The effects of magnesium on the growth and proliferation of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) was explored to advance magnesium as an implant biomaterial. When magnesium ions from magnesium salt were added to the culture media at 10, 100, 250, 500, 750, and 1000 ppm (0.4, 4, 10, 20, 30, 40 mM) the rate of increase in viable cell coverage over time was higher for the larger doses of magnesium salt.

Nanophase hydroxyapatite and poly(lactide-co-glycolide) composites promote human mesenchymal stem cell adhesion and osteogenic differentiation in vitro.

Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) typically range in size from 10 to 50 μm and proteins that mediate hMSC adhesion and differentiation usually have a size of a few nanometers. Nanomaterials with a feature size smaller than 100 nm have demonstrated the unique capability of promoting osteoblast (bone forming cell) adhesion and long-term functions, leading to more effective bone tissue regeneration. For new bone deposition, MSCs have to be recruited to the injury or disease sites and then differentiate into osteoblasts.