Monitoring the apical growth characteristics of hairy roots using non-invasive laser speckle contrast imaging.

Hairy roots are used to produce plant agents and additives. Due to their heterogeneous structure and growth characteristics, it is difficult to determine growth-related parameters continuously and in real time. Laser speckle contrast analysis is widely used as a non-destructive measurement technique in material testing or in medical technology.

Biospeckle-characterization of hairy root cultures using laser speckle photometry.

Monitoring is indispensable for the optimization and simulation of biotechnological processes. Hairy roots (hr, plant tissue cultures) are producers of valuable relevant secondary metabolites. The genetically stable cultures are characterized by a rapid filamentous growth, making monitoring difficult with standard methods.

Microalgae wastewater treatment: Biological and technological approaches.

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.

Monitoring bioactive and total antibody concentrations for continuous process control by surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy.

Monoclonal antibodies have become an increasingly important part of fundamental research and medical applications. To meet the high market demand for monoclonal antibodies in the biopharmaceutical sector, industrial manufacturing needs to be achieved by large scale, highly productive and consistent production processes. These are subject to international guidelines and have to be monitored intensely due to high safety standards for medical applications.

Modeling population dynamics in a microbial consortium under control of a synthetic pheromone-mediated communication system.

Microbial consortia can be used to catalyze complex biotransformations. Tools to control the behavior of these consortia in a technical environment are currently lacking. In the present study, a synthetic biology approach was used to build a model consortium of two strains where growth and expression of the fluorescent marker protein EGFP by the receiver strain is controlled by the concentration of α-factor pheromone, which is produced by the emitter strain.

Uptake of iron by DSM 5422 cultivated in a whey-based medium.

The ability of for converting lactose into ethyl acetate offers a chance for the economical reuse of whey. Iron plays a significant role in this process as ester synthesis requires a low intracellular iron content, . The iron content in turn is decreased by growth due to cell expansion and increased by iron uptake.

A new method for non-invasive biomass determination based on stereo photogrammetry.

A novel, non-destructive method for the biomass estimation of biological samples on culture dishes was developed. To achieve this, a photogrammetric system, which consists of a digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR), an illuminated platform where the culture dishes are positioned and an Arduino board which controls the capturing process, was constructed. The camera was mounted on a holder which set the camera at different title angles and the platform rotated, to capture images from different directions.

Additive Biotech-Chances, challenges, and recent applications of additive manufacturing technologies in biotechnology.

The diversity and complexity of biotechnological applications are constantly increasing, with ever expanding ranges of production hosts, cultivation conditions and measurement tasks. Consequently, many analytical and cultivation systems for biotechnology and bioprocess engineering, such as microfluidic devices or bioreactors, are tailor-made to precisely satisfy the requirements of specific measurements or cultivation tasks. Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies offer the possibility of fabricating tailor-made 3D laboratory equipment directly from CAD designs with previously inaccessible levels of freedom in terms of structural complexity.

Green bioprinting: extrusion-based fabrication of plant cell-laden biopolymer hydrogel scaffolds.

Plant cell cultures produce active agents for pharmaceuticals, food and cosmetics. However, up to now process control for plant cell suspension cultures is challenging. A positive impact of cell immobilization, such as encapsulation in hydrogel beads, on secondary metabolites production has been reported for several plant species.

A novel protocol to prepare cell probes for the quantification of microbial adhesion and biofilm initiation on structured bioinspired surfaces using AFM for single-cell force spectroscopy: Dedicated to Prof. em. Dr. Dr. H.C. Karl Schügerl on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

We present a novel protocol that uses single-cell force spectroscopy to characterize the bacteria-to-surface interactions involved in early steps of biofilm formation. Bacteria are immobilized as a monolayer by electrostatic interactions on a polyethylenimine-coated silica bead, and the bead complex is then glued on a tipless cantilever. We validated our new protocol by comparing to earlier published methods using single bacteria, but in contrast to these, which carry out bacterial attachment to the bead after fixation to the cantilever, our protocol results in more reliable production of usable cell probes.

"Fungal elicitors combined with a sucrose feed significantly enhance triterpene production of a Salvia fruticosa cell suspension".

Oleanolic (OA) and ursolic acid (UA) are plant secondary metabolites with diverse pharmacological properties. To reach reasonable productivities with plant cell suspension cultures, elicitation is a widely used strategy. Within the presented work, the effects of different elicitors on growth and production of OA and UA in a Salvia fruticosa cell suspension culture were examined.

Two parametric cell cycle analyses of plant cell suspension cultures with fragile, isolated nuclei to investigate heterogeneity in growth of batch cultivations.

Plant cell suspensions are frequently considered to be heterogeneous with respect to growth in terms of progression of the cells through the cell cycle and biomass accumulation. Thus, segregated data of fractions in different cycle phases during cultivation is needed to develop robust production processes. Bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) incorporation and BrdU-antibodies or 5-ethynyl-2'-deoxyuridine (EdU) click-it chemistry are frequently used to acquire such information.

Light-field-characterization in a continuous hydrogen-producing photobioreactor by optical simulation and computational fluid dynamics.

Externally illuminated photobioreactors (PBRs) are widely used in studies on the use of phototrophic microorganisms as sources of bioenergy and other photobiotechnology research. In this work, straightforward simulation techniques were used to describe effects of varying fluid flow conditions in a continuous hydrogen-producing PBR on the rate of photofermentative hydrogen production (rH2 ) by Rhodobacter sphaeroides DSM 158. A ZEMAX optical ray tracing simulation was performed to quantify the illumination intensity reaching the interior of the cylindrical PBR vessel.

Better One-Eyed than Blind--Challenges and Opportunities of Biomass Measurement During Solid-State Fermentation of Basidiomycetes.

Filamentous fungi, especially basidiomycetes, produce a wide range of metabolites, many of which have potential biotechnological and industrial applications. Solid-state fermentation (SSF) is very suitable for the cultivation of basidiomycetes since it mimics the natural habitat of these fungi. Some of the major advantages of SSF are the robustness of the process, the use of low-cost residual materials as substrates, and the reduced usage of water.

PetriJet Platform Technology: An Automated Platform for Culture Dish Handling and Monitoring of the Contents.

Due to the size of the required equipment, automated laboratory systems are often unavailable or impractical for use in small- and mid-sized laboratories. However, recent developments in automation engineering provide endless possibilities for incorporating benchtop devices. Here, the authors describe the development of a platform technology to handle sealed culture dishes.

Biomass estimation during macro-scale solid-state fermentation of basidiomycetes using established and novel approaches.

Solid-state fermentation (SSF) has been utilised in food production for millennia and is well suited for the cultivation of basidiomycetes, due to the robustness of the process and the possibility of using lignocellulose as the substrate. Basidiomycetes produce diverse enzymes and various primary and secondary metabolites, many of which have biotechnological potential. The quantification of the fungal biomass present is essential for the characterisation of growth kinetics in processes such as SSF.

Ramified Challenges: Monitoring and Modeling of Hairy Root Growth in Bioprocesses--A Review.

The review presents a comprehensive overview on available solutions for the monitoring and modeling of various aspects of hairy root growth processes. Several online and offline measurement principles get explained exemplary and are being compared. It was found that no direct online measurement principle for hairy root biomass in submerged and solid-state culturing environment is available.

Kinetic Analyses of Data from a Human Serum Albumin Assay Using the liSPR System.

We used the interaction between human serum albumin (HSA) and a high-affinity antibody to evaluate binding affinity measurements by the bench-top liSPR system (capitalis technology GmbH). HSA was immobilized directly onto a carboxylated sensor layer, and the mechanism of interaction between the antibody and HSA was investigated. The bivalence and heterogeneity of the antibody caused a complex binding mechanism.

Studies on the mechanism of synthesis of ethyl acetate in Kluyveromyces marxianus DSM 5422.

Kluyveromyces marxianus converts whey-borne sugar into ethyl acetate, an environmentally friendly solvent with many applications. K. marxianus DSM 5422 presumably synthesizes ethyl acetate from acetyl-SCoA.

Biomass measurement by flow cytometry during solid-state fermentation of basidiomycetes.

Solid-state fermentation (SSF) is a robust process that is well suited to the on-site cultivation of basidiomycetes that produce enzymes for the treatment of lignocellulosics. Reliable methods for biomass quantification are essential for the analysis of fungal growth kinetics. However, direct biomass determination is not possible during SSF because the fungi grow into the substrate and use it as a nutrient source.

Hydrogen production by Rhodobacter sphaeroides DSM 158 under intense irradiation.

To identify optimal hydrogen production conditions using growing cultures of Rhodobacter sphaeroides DSM 158 the effects of varying the reactor's volumetric power input (0.01-1.4kWm(-3)) and irradiation intensity (5-2500Wm(-2)) were investigated in batch and continuous production modes.