Degradation Kinetics and Mechanism of Antibiotic Ceftiofur in Recycled Water Derived from a Beef Farm

ISTC’s senior research scientist Wei Zheng collaborated with researchers from the Illinois State Water Survey, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the University of Illinois to determine the degradation kinetics of ceftiofur in liquid manure. Results were published in Xiaolin Li, Wei Zheng, Michael L. Machesky, Scott R. Yates, and Michael Katterhenry (2011). Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 59(18), 10176-10181. DOI: 10.1021/jf202325c.Ope

Fate and Transport of Steroid Hormones and Veterinary Antibiotics Derived from Cattle Farms

Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have been identified as one of the most important sources for the release of animal hormones and veterinary antibiotics into the aquatic environment. Funded by a USDA research grant, Dr. Wei Zheng set out to identify and quantify the environmental fate and transport of several commonly-occurring steroid hormones, veterinary antibiotics, and their metabolites. Findings were published in the following papers: Xiaolin Li, Wei Zheng, Michael L. Machesky, Scott R. Yates, and Michael Katterhenry (2011). Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 2011 59 (18), 10176-10181 DOI: 10.1021/jf202325c Wei Zheng, Xiaolin Li, Scott R. Yates, and Scott A. Bradford (2012). Environmental Science & Technology 46 (10), 5471-5478. DOI: 10.1021/es301551h Xiaolin Li, Wei Zheng, Walton R. Kelly (2013). Science of the Total Environment 445-446, 22-28. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2012.12.035 Wei Zheng, Yonghong Zou, Xiaolin Li, Michael L. Machesky (2013). Journal of Hazardous Materials 258-259, 109-115. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2013.04.038 Yonghong Zou and Wei Zheng Environmental Science & Technology 2013 47 (10), 5185-5192 DOI: 10.1021/es400624w.U.S. Department of AgricultureOpe

Occurrence and Fate of the Herbicide Glyphosate in Tile Drainage and Receiving Rivers in East Central Illinois

Agricultural fields in the Midwestern United States are commonly tile-drained. This drainage system is used to remove excess water from the soil profile to increase crop production and promote soil conservation. However, subsurface tile drainage can readily deliver nutrients and pesticides from agricultural fields into surrounding watersheds. Glyphosate is a widely used pesticide in Midwestern agricultural fields, especially for modified glyphosate-resistant soybean and corn cultivars. The goal of this project was to develop a reliable and accurate analytical method to monitor the occurrence of glyphosate and its metabolite, aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA), in tile drain water and receiving river water collected in east central Illinois agricultural lands. In this study, an isotopic dilution method was developed to analyze trace levels of glyphosate and AMPA in water using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), combined with pre-column derivatization and solid phase extraction for sample preparation. The method recoveries of glyphosate and AMPA during the whole monitoring period ranged from 85 to 120% and 83 to 147%, respectively. The limit of detection of the developed methods for glyphosate and AMPA was 0.10 μg/L with a relative standard deviation (RSD) of https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.09.387.Illinois Sustainable Technology Center Sponsored Research Program ; HWR17-245Ope

Occurrence and Fate of the Herbicide Glyphosate in Tile Drainage and Receiving Rivers in East Central Illinois

Agricultural fields in the Midwestern United States are commonly tile-drained. This drainage system is used to remove excess water from the soil profile to increase crop production and promote soil conservation. However, subsurface tile drainage can readily deliver nutrients and pesticides from agricultural fields into surrounding watersheds. Glyphosate is a widely used pesticide in Midwestern agricultural fields, especially for modified glyphosate-resistant soybean and corn cultivars. The goal of this project was to develop a reliable and accurate analytical method to monitor the occurrence of glyphosate and its metabolite, aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA), in tile drain water and receiving river water collected in east central Illinois agricultural lands. In this study, an isotopic dilution method was developed to analyze trace levels of glyphosate and AMPA in water using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), combined with pre-column derivatization and solid phase extraction for sample preparation. The method recoveries of glyphosate and AMPA during the whole monitoring period ranged from 85 to 120% and 83 to 147%, respectively. The limit of detection of the developed methods for glyphosate and AMPA was 0.10 μg/L with a relative standard deviation (RSD) of https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.09.387.Illinois Sustainable Technology Center Sponsored Research Program ; HWR17-245Ope

Scaling Laws for Impact Craters in Water

Tsunami waves from asteroid impacts into water are of concern from asteroids in the 200 m to 1 km diameter range because this spans the range from asteroids that will likely hit the surface and not airburst, but also be small enough that global climate effects will hopefully be minimal. Current estimates of impact tsunamis depend on either hydrocode simulations or on semi-analytical models. Unfortunately there is significant disagreement between these methods. One of the main reasons for the disparity is that the semi-analytical models such as Holsapple (1993) rely on experimental impacts into deep water. However for asteroids in the 200 - 1000 m range even the deep ocean basins can appear as shallow water impacts where the crater formed in the water reaches all the way to the sea floor. Another reason for the disparity arises from the linear interpolation of data across many orders of magnitude difference between Froude number (ratio of kinetic to gravitational energy) used in the laboratory experiments and what would be seen in an asteroid impact. The Gault & Sonett (1982) experiment shot millimeter sized glass spheres into water at 1 to 6 km/s and the Olevson (1969) experiment dropped millimeter sized water drops at a few meters per second. The goal of this work was to fill in the gaps and conduct experiments and simulations at the correct Froude numbers of interest, and in both deep and shallow water, to help resolve the disparity and extend the semi-analytical models

Marine Microalgae: Climate, Energy, and Food Security From the Sea

Climate, energy, and food security are three of the greatest challenges society faces this century. Solutions for mitigating the effects of climate change often conflict with solutions for ensuring society’s future energy and food requirements. For example, BioEnergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) has been proposed as an important method for achieving negative CO2 emissions later this century while simultaneously producing renewable energy on a global scale. However, BECCS has many negative environmental consequences for land, nutrient, and water use as well as biodiversity and food production. In contrast, large-scale industrial cultivation of marine microalgae can provide society with a more environmentally favorable approach for meeting the climate goals agreed to at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, producing the liquid hydrocarbon fuels required by the global transportation sector, and supplying much of the protein necessary to feed a global population approaching 10 billion people

Melanoma cells break down LPA to establish local gradients that drive chemotactic dispersal.

The high mortality of melanoma is caused by rapid spread of cancer cells, which occurs unusually early in tumour evolution. Unlike most solid tumours, thickness rather than cytological markers or differentiation is the best guide to metastatic potential. Multiple stimuli that drive melanoma cell migration have been described, but it is not clear which are responsible for invasion, nor if chemotactic gradients exist in real tumours. In a chamber-based assay for melanoma dispersal, we find that cells migrate efficiently away from one another, even in initially homogeneous medium. This dispersal is driven by positive chemotaxis rather than chemorepulsion or contact inhibition. The principal chemoattractant, unexpectedly active across all tumour stages, is the lipid agonist lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) acting through the LPA receptor LPAR1. LPA induces chemotaxis of remarkable accuracy, and is both necessary and sufficient for chemotaxis and invasion in 2-D and 3-D assays. Growth factors, often described as tumour attractants, cause negligible chemotaxis themselves, but potentiate chemotaxis to LPA. Cells rapidly break down LPA present at substantial levels in culture medium and normal skin to generate outward-facing gradients. We measure LPA gradients across the margins of melanomas in vivo, confirming the physiological importance of our results. We conclude that LPA chemotaxis provides a strong drive for melanoma cells to invade outwards. Cells create their own gradients by acting as a sink, breaking down locally present LPA, and thus forming a gradient that is low in the tumour and high in the surrounding areas. The key step is not acquisition of sensitivity to the chemoattractant, but rather the tumour growing to break down enough LPA to form a gradient. Thus the stimulus that drives cell dispersal is not the presence of LPA itself, but the self-generated, outward-directed gradient

Solution-based nanoengineering of materials.

Solution-based synthesis is a powerful approach for creating nano-structured materials. Although there have been significant recent successes in its application to fabricating nanomaterials, the general principles that control solution synthesis are not well understood. The purpose of this LDRD project was to develop the scientific principles required to design and build unique nanostructures in crystalline oxides and II/VI semiconductors using solution-based molecular self-assembly techniques. The ability to synthesize these materials in a range of different nano-architectures (from controlled morphology nanocrystals to surface templated 3-D structures) has provided the foundation for new opportunities in such areas as interactive interfaces for optics, electronics, and sensors. The homogeneous precipitation of ZnO in aqueous solution was used primarily as the model system for the project. We developed a low temperature, aqueous solution synthesis route for preparation of large arrays of oriented ZnO nanostructures. Through control of heterogeneous nucleation and growth, methods to predicatively alter the ZnO microstructures by tailoring the surface chemistry of the crystals were established. Molecular mechanics simulations, involving single point energy calculations and full geometry optimizations, were developed to assist in selecting appropriate chemical systems and understanding physical adsorption and ultimately growth mechanisms in the design of oxide nanoarrays. The versatility of peptide chemistry in controlling the formation of cadmium sulfide nanoparticles and zinc oxide/cadmium sulfide heterostructures was also demonstrated

Actin polymerization driven by WASH causes V-ATPase retrieval and vesicle neutralization before exocytosis

WASH coats mature lysosomes and is required for exocytosis of indigestible material

LIM kinases are required for invasive path generation by tumor and tumor-associated stromal cells

Leading cells require LIMK for matrix degradation and invadopodia formation during collective cell migration