Biogas production by co-ensiling catch crops and straw, effect of substrate blend and microbial communities

The combination of catch crop (CC) and barley straw(S) for biogas production was investigated in order to evaluate the ensiling process in batch assay and in continuous process. Based on two new agriculture strategies designed to produce energy and improve nutrient cycling in organic farming are being evaluated, one of them consisting on the harvest of straw and catch crop in different periods whereas the other strategy consists on harvesting them at the same time. Catch crops is promoted to reduce nutrient leaching during rainy season and straw that is not used for animal feeding or bedding is generally left in the field. Mixtures of CC and S provides several advantages: 1) Provides adequate TS for silage, 2) Absorbs the silage effluent, 3) Produces high LAB activity, and 4) Provides an optimal C/N for anaerobic digestion (AD). The effect of feeding compositions (straw or manurea ddition) on the microbial community structures were also investigated

Effect of anaerobic digestion of cover crops and straw on N and S availability in the digestate

Lack of nutrients and poor synchrony between nutrient availability and crop demand are often reasons for low yields in organic farming. A field experiment conducted in Denmark aims to use cover crops (CC) to produce extra biomass for biogas production and afterwards utilize the digestate as nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S) fertilizer. The influence of the main crop harvest time and the straw management on biomass production of cover crops is investigated. A spring barley crop and an under-sown CC (clover and chicory mixture) were established to compare early and late barley harvest time and different straw management, including a treatment with high stubble. The dry matter (DM) yield of CC in October was 2.5 t/ha for early barley harvest and 2.3 t/ha for late harvest. At early barley harvest with high stubble treatment, an extra DM yield of 1.3 t/ha was obtained. The harvested CC was ensiled and used as substrates for mono- and co-digestion with cattle manure in 15L digesters. The silages contained mixtures of CC and straw at ratios 1:0, 3:1 and 10:1 (fresh weight basis). Anaerobic digestion (AD) increased the fraction of NH4+ in total N from 0.07 to 0.41 in a reactor fed with CC silage only, for example. This increase was lower for reactors fed with higher ratio of straw in the silage mixture. In 2018, the N fertilizer value of cattle manure and different digestates and raw silages are tested in a new spring barley crop in confined microplots. Yields and N uptake of spring barley will be measured and the fertilizer value of digested materials will be compared with corresponding undigested cover crops. In addition, the fate of N and S in the soil with different cover crop-straw mixtures and digestion management will be investigated

Digestates from cover crop, straw and cattle slurry mixtures as nutrient source in organic cropping system

Yields in organic arable farming are way below the potential. The reasons are due to the lack of nutrients and poor synchrony between nutrient availability and crop demand (Möller and Müller, 2012). Nitrogen (N) is often the most limiting nutrient for biomass production. Nitrogen available in soil is taken up by plant almost exclusively in mineral form. Yet, limitation of mineralized N in soil is often the problem especially in organic farming. In crop management systems using only organic substrates, the challenge is to increase the N mineral fertilizer value of organic substrates in order for organic farming to rely on organic fertilizer sources. Anaerobic digestion has the potential to increase the nutrients availability (Webb et al., 2013). Cover crops (CC) are useful to reduce nutrient leaching losses and they have the potential to produce extra biomass for biogas production. If a CC with symbiotic N fixation is used the CC can also contribute with extra N to the system. The biomass production in cover crops is influenced by the main crop harvest time and probably by the straw management. The aim of the current study is to quantify the influence of main crop harvest time and straw management and the inclusion of anaerobic digestion of cover crops and straw on N utilization and on potential biogas production. A comparison between mono- and co-digestion of cover crops, straw and cattle slurry is also included

Towards the glueball spectrum from unquenched lattice QCD

We use a variational technique to study heavy glueballs on gauge configurations generated with 2+1 flavours of ASQTAD improved staggered fermions. The variational technique includes glueball scattering states. The measurements were made using 2150 configurations at 0.092 fm with a pion mass of 360 MeV. We report masses for 10 glueball states. We discuss the prospects for unquenched lattice QCD calculations of the oddballs.Comment: 19 pages, 4 tables and 8 figures. One figure added. Now matches the published versio

Neuropilin 1 is an entry factor that promotes EBV infection of nasopharyngeal epithelial cells

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is implicated as an aetiological factor in B lymphomas and nasopharyngeal carcinoma. The mechanisms of cell-free EBV infection of nasopharyngeal epithelial cells remain elusive. EBV glycoprotein B (gB) is the critical fusion protein for infection of both B and epithelial cells, and determines EBV susceptibility of non-B cells. Here we show that neuropilin 1 (NRP1) directly interacts with EBV gB 23-431. Either knockdown of NRP1 or pretreatment of EBV with soluble NRP1 suppresses EBV infection. Upregulation of NRP1 by overexpression or EGF treatment enhances EBV infection. However, NRP2, the homologue of NRP1, impairs EBV infection. EBV enters nasopharyngeal epithelial cells through NRP1-facilitated internalization and fusion, and through macropinocytosis and lipid raft-dependent endocytosis. NRP1 partially mediates EBV-activated EGFR/RAS/ERK signalling, and NRP1-dependent receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) signalling promotes EBV infection. Taken together, NRP1 is identified as an EBV entry factor that cooperatively activates RTK signalling, which subsequently promotes EBV infection in nasopharyngeal epithelial cells. © 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.published_or_final_versio

Combination of photothermal, prodrug and tumor cell camouflage technologies for triple-negative breast cancer treatment

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) remains the most challenging breast cancer subtype. In the presented work, we have combined several emerging technologies to build up a nanoplatform for TNBC treatment: photothermal therapy, prodrug design and tumor cell camouflage formulation. First, we synthesized a paclitaxel (PTX) based prodrug PTX-SS, and then conjugated it to the surface of gold nanorod (Au NR) @ mesoporous silica (MSN) core-shell nanoparticles (Au@MSN-NH2 NPs). Subsequently, doxorubicin (DOX) was loaded into the Au@PTXSS-MSN NPs and further coated with cell membranes isolated from MDA-MB-231 cells to form cell camouflaged Au@PTXSS-MSN/DOX@CM NPs. The Au@PTXSS-MSN/DOX@CM NPs exhibited very good DOX loading capacity and the prodrug strategy enabled the precise adjustability of PTX-SS loading to achieve the optimized ratio between PTX and DOX to maximize the synergistic effect of these two drugs, as well as enabled GSH-responsive intracellular drug release. More interestingly, the cell membrane coating not only protected the drug from premature release, but also significantly improved the targeting ability of NPs to breast cancer MDA-MB-231 cells. The NPs also showed good photothermal responsiveness with clear improvement in inhibiting MDA-MB231 cell proliferation under laser irradiation. The in vivo studies further confirmed the effectiveness of Au@PTXSS-MSN/DOX@CM NPs on TNBC tumor inhibition in 4T1 cell grafted tumor mice model. (c) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)