Environmental Impacts of Water Use in Global Crop Production: Hotspots and Trade-Offs with Land Use

Global crop production is causing pressure on water and land resources in many places. In addition to local resource management, the related environmental impacts of commodities traded along international supply chains need to be considered and managed accordingly. For this purpose, we calculate the specific water consumption and land use for the production of 160 crops and crop groups, covering most harvested mass on global cropland. We quantify indicators for land and water scarcity with high geospatial resolution. This facilitates spatially explicit crop-specific resource management and regionalized life cycle assessment of processed products. The vast cultivation of irrigated wheat, rice, cotton, maize, and sugar cane, which are major sources of food, bioenergy, and fiber, drives worldwide water scarcity. According to globally averaged production, substituting biofuel for crude oil would have a lower impact on water resources than substituting cotton for polyester. For some crops, water scarcity impacts are inversely related to land resource stress, illustrating that water consumption is often at odds with land use. On global average, maize performs better than rice and wheat in the combined land/water assessment. High spatial variability of water and land use related impacts underlines the importance of appropriate site selection for agricultural activities

Environmental Impacts of Water Use in Global Crop Production: Hotspots and Trade-Offs with Land Use

Global crop production is causing pressure on water and land resources in many places. In addition to local resource management, the related environmental impacts of commodities traded along international supply chains need to be considered and managed accordingly. For this purpose, we calculate the specific water consumption and land use for the production of 160 crops and crop groups, covering most harvested mass on global cropland. We quantify indicators for land and water scarcity with high geospatial resolution. This facilitates spatially explicit crop-specific resource management and regionalized life cycle assessment of processed products. The vast cultivation of irrigated wheat, rice, cotton, maize, and sugar cane, which are major sources of food, bioenergy, and fiber, drives worldwide water scarcity. According to globally averaged production, substituting biofuel for crude oil would have a lower impact on water resources than substituting cotton for polyester. For some crops, water scarcity impacts are inversely related to land resource stress, illustrating that water consumption is often at odds with land use. On global average, maize performs better than rice and wheat in the combined land/water assessment. High spatial variability of water and land use related impacts underlines the importance of appropriate site selection for agricultural activities

Chemical shift difference analysis of the long Taspase1 loop.

<p>Analysis of the chemical shift differences with respect to random coil values for H_α, C_α, and C_β shifts of the Taspase1 loop. Helices according to the secondary structure prediction are depicted on top. Note that stretches of negative H_α and C_β values, as well as positive C_α values indicate a helical conformation of the respective amino acids.</p

Design of a Modular Protein-Based MRI Contrast Agent for Targeted Application

<div><p>Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) offers a non-radioactive alternative for the non-invasive detection of tumours. Low molecular weight MRI contrast agents currently in clinical use suffer either from a lack of specificity for tumour tissue or from low relaxivity and thus low contrast amplification. In this study, we present the newly designed two domain fusion protein Zarvin, which is able to bind to therapeutic IgG antibodies suitable for targeting, while facilitating contrast enhancement through high affinity binding sites for Gd³⁺. We show that the Zarvin fold is stable under serum conditions, specifically targets a cancer cell-line when bound to the Cetuximab IgG, and allows for imaging with high relaxivity, a property that would be advantageous for the detection of small tumours and metastases at 1.5 or 3 T.</p></div

Additional file 1: Figure S1. of NmPin from the marine thaumarchaeote Nitrosopumilus maritimus is an active membrane associated prolyl isomerase

Sequence alignment of NmPin from N. maritimus with various homologues from other phyla to investigate a potential conservation of the positively charged lysine patch of NmPin. Representatives were found by BLAST search. Each group was separately aligned to NmPin (green). Lysines of the patch (K5, K7, K31, K34, K37, K47, K48, K90) are labelled in dark blue and Arg or positively charged residues which are in close proximity to the conserved position are labelled in light blue. The positively charged patch on the surface of NmPin might be conserved also in other members of the TACK phylum. (PDF 464 kb

Figure 1

<p><b>Binding properties and relaxometric properties of Zarvin.</b> (A) Cartoon representation of Zarvin bound to the F_c part of an IgG antibody. Two calcium ions (spheres) are bound to Parvalbumin (green), which is connected with the Z domain (violet) via a decaglycine linker (grey). (B) Fluorescence anisotropy titration experiment. Increasing amounts of the monoclonal IgG antibody Cetuximab were added to a 100 nM concentration of Zarvin-Atto-465. (C) Confocal microscopic analysis of the complex Cetuximab:Zarvin-D72C-Atto 594 binding to the EGF receptor located in the cell membrane of A431 cells. Left, cell assembly; right, single cell; control experiments (<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0065346#pone.0065346.s004" target="_blank">Figure S4</a>) (D) Relaxometric properties of Zarvin:(Gd³⁺)₂ at three different field strengths employing an inversion recovery TSE experiment. A diluted solution of rising concentrations of Zarvin:(Gd³⁺)₂ was investigated to find the limiting concentration which still produces a visible contrast towards the buffer control (0 µM). The picture is displayed with an inversion time TI which zeroes the signal of the buffer control (appears black).</p

Characterization of novel elongated Parvulin isoforms that are ubiquitously expressed in human tissues and originate from alternative transcription initiation-2

<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Characterization of novel elongated Parvulin isoforms that are ubiquitously expressed in human tissues and originate from alternative transcription initiation"</p><p>BMC Molecular Biology 2006;7():9-9.</p><p>Published online 7 Mar 2006</p><p>PMCID:PMC1420321.</p><p></p>. Reaction products were separated by 17.5% SDS-PAGE following autoradiography. . Equal amounts of 35S-methionine labeled Par17-QR, Par17-RS and Par14 were incubated with increasing concentrations of proteinaseK (PK) for 30 min at 10°C. Enzyme concentrations are given in μg/ml. Reactions were stopped by an excess of PMSF, separated by SDS-PAGE and subjected to autoradiography. . Western blot of HepG2 (lane 1 and 3) and HeLa (lane 2 and 4) cell lysates. Proteins were separated by SDS-PAGE with MES as running buffer and SeeBlue2 as protein standard, transferred to nitrocellulose membranes. Blots were incubated with pre-immune (lane 1 and 2) or anti-Par17 serum (lane 3 and 4; both at 500-fold dilution). . Coding sequences for Par17-RS and -QR were subcloned in the pET-28 vector with N-terminal His6 tag and expressed in . Lysates were subjected to reducing SDS-PAGE in MES buffer and SeeBlue2 as protein standard, transferred to nitrocellulose membranes and incubated with the anti-Par17 antibody. -, before IPTG induction; RS, Par17-RS lysates; QR, Par17-QR lysates. Coomassie stained gel of lysates to show equal loading. Par17 fusions with His6 tag and thrombin cleavage sites show apparent molecular weights of about 22 KDa in SDS-PAGE. The induction band in E. coli lysates and the corresponding band recognized by Ab-EXT are labeled with arrows. The lower migrating band may be caused by proteolytic degradation. . Par14 coding sequence was expressed as GFP fusion in HeLa cells (lane 3). Lane 1 and 2 are HeLa cell lysates not transfected with this construct. Lysates were subjected to reducing SDS-PAGE in Tris-glycine buffer with MagicMark as protein standard, transferred to nitrocellulose membranes and incubated with anti-Par17 and anti-GFP antibodies. Coomassie stained gel of lysates to show equal loading

Characterization of novel elongated Parvulin isoforms that are ubiquitously expressed in human tissues and originate from alternative transcription initiation-4

<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Characterization of novel elongated Parvulin isoforms that are ubiquitously expressed in human tissues and originate from alternative transcription initiation"</p><p>BMC Molecular Biology 2006;7():9-9.</p><p>Published online 7 Mar 2006</p><p>PMCID:PMC1420321.</p><p></p>sequence two additional in-frame ATG codons (highlighted in blue). The only other 5' ATG codon is present in the sequence; it is out of frame and followed by a TAA stop codon (both underlined). All in-frame stop codons are marked in red. Only the human sequence displays an extended open reading frame, both as QR and RS isoform (SNPs highlighted in grey)

Characterization of novel elongated Parvulin isoforms that are ubiquitously expressed in human tissues and originate from alternative transcription initiation-0

<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Characterization of novel elongated Parvulin isoforms that are ubiquitously expressed in human tissues and originate from alternative transcription initiation"</p><p>BMC Molecular Biology 2006;7():9-9.</p><p>Published online 7 Mar 2006</p><p>PMCID:PMC1420321.</p><p></p>n mRNA contains a 92 bp extension at the 5' side depicted in white. Primers used for RT-PCR are indicated by arrows. Primers 246 and 247 are complementary to the sequences around the two start ATG codons, 248 binds at the sequence around the TAA stop codon. . RT-PCR products with mRNA from liver, kidney and Caco-2 cells after 30 amplification cycles. Primers 246 and 248 yield a 488 bp PCR product only on those Par14 mRNAs with 5' extension. Primers 247 and 248 give rise to a 385 bp DNA fragment with all Par14 mRNAs. All longer RT-PCR products were eluted from the gel and sequenced. . Two start ATG codons are indicated in bold capital letters. The sequence of Parvulin common to both originally described cDNAs by Uchida . [GenBank:] [3] and Rulten . [GenBank:] [9] begins at the caa codon depicted in bold. The peptide sequence used for antibody production is shaded in grey. Two SNPs are shown leading to amino acid substitutions Q16R and R18S