̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - metabolism

Wellcome awards Cambridge £18 million for two Discovery Research Platforms

cjb250 — Wed, 03 May 2023 23:01:48 +0000

̽��ֱ��Discovery Research Platforms (DRPs) will be home to transformative research environments that empower researchers to overcome specific barriers holding back progress in their fields of research. They aim to accelerate research for the benefit of the wider global research community, with researchers and teams developing new tools, knowledge and capabilities to help unlock new findings about life, health and wellbeing.

Michael Dunn, Director of Discovery Research at Wellcome, said: “Discovery research is essential to advancing our ability to understand and improve health. But in addition to researchers’ bold and imaginative ideas, we know that new tools, methods and capabilities are also needed to unlock new avenues of research that can disrupt and transform the research landscape globally.”

̽��ֱ��two Cambridge DRPs, which will receive £9million each over seven years, are:

̽��ֱ��Discovery Research Platform for Tissue Scale Biology – which seeks to move stem cell biology to the tissue and organ scale of research, creating a new network of local and international researchers to enable strategies that capitalise on new in vitro models to develop better treatments for human patients.

Professor Bertie Gottgens, Director of the Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, said: "I am delighted that Wellcome will support our ambition to build a new Discovery Research Platform to provide international leadership for Tissue Scale Biology.

“Our vision for this platform resulted from extensive discussions across the wider Cambridge Stem Cell community and the formation of a highly interdisciplinary team connecting the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute with the West Cambridge Engineering/Technology community. It also incorporates exciting new training partnerships with Anglia Ruskin ̽��ֱ�� and the Cambridge Academy for Science and Technology, to help us fill critical skills shortages and widen participation across Cambridge."

̽��ֱ��Discovery Research Platform for Integrating Metabolic and Endocrine Science – which aims to address practical barriers preventing data integration across metabolic and endocrine science, investigate how hormones control metabolic processes and how these can go wrong in disorders such as obesity, diabetes and cachexia, and create tools to facilitate global access to this data. ̽��ֱ��Platform will encompass research on molecules, cells and model organisms but will have a major focus on discovery science in human participants, patients and populations.

̽��ֱ��funding will sustain key technological platforms and the highly-trained staff needed to support these. It will also underpin partnerships with research centres across the UK as well as in Germany and Denmark, all of which will provide new opportunities for training.

̽��ֱ��Platform will have a major focus on the broad dissemination of integrated data and the creation of tools to facilitate access by the global community. ̽��ֱ��award will also accelerate the team’s drive to make transformational changes to research culture with new initiatives in widening access and open science reinforced by a new programme of research into the culture of biomedical science, in collaboration with Dr Yeun Joon Kim, Associate Professor at the Cambridge Judge Business School.

Professor Sir Stephen O’Rahilly, Co-Director at the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science and Director of the MRC Metabolic Diseases Unit, said: “Wellcome’s support of our scientists’ research in metabolism and endocrinology, and of the technological platforms that underpin it, has been critically important to the discoveries we have made and the translation of that research into improvements in health. This new award will allow us to build on those achievements and deliver more ground-breaking science in a manner that emphasises openness, diversity and a spirit of collaboration.”

Cambridge has been awarded two of Wellcome’s eight new Discovery Research Platforms, the global charitable foundation announced today.

Odra Noel

Acinar tissue - ̽��ֱ��flowers of diabetes

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Study in mice suggests drug to turn fat ‘brown’ could help fight obesity

cjb250 — Mon, 26 Nov 2018 13:51:16 +0000

While their study was carried out in mice, they hope that this finding will translate into humans and provide a potential new drug to help fight obesity.

Obesity is a condition in which individuals accumulate more and more fat until their fat stops functioning. This can lead to diseases such as diabetes. However, not all fat tissue is bad: the fat that accumulates in obesity is known as ‘white fat’, but a second form of fat known as ‘brown fat’ could be used to treat obesity.

Both brown and white fat are made up of fat cells known as adipocytes, but in brown fat, these cells are rich in mitochondria – the ‘batteries’ that power our bodies – which give the tissue its brown colour. Brown fat also contains more blood vessels to allow the body to provide it with oxygen and nutrients.

While white fat stories energy, brown fat burns it in a process known as ‘thermogenesis’. When fully activated, just 100g of brown fat can burn 3,400 calories a day – significantly higher than most people’s daily food intake and more than enough to fight obesity.

We all have some brown fat – or brown adipose tissue, as it is also known – in our bodies, but it is found most abundantly in newborns and in hibernating animals (where the heat produced by brown fat enables them to survive even in freezing temperatures). As we age, the amount of brown fat in our bodies decreases.

Just having more brown fat alone is not enough - the tissue also needs to be activated. Currently, the only ways to activate brown fat are to put people in the cold to mimic hibernation, which is both impractical and unpleasant, or to treat them with drugs known as adrenergic agonists, but these can cause heart attacks. It is also necessary to increase the number of blood vessels in the tissue to carry nutrients to the fat cells and the number of nerve cells to allow the brain to ‘switch on’ the tissue.

In 2012, a team led by Professor Toni Vidal-Puig from the Wellcome Trust-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, identified a molecule known as BMP8b that regulates the activation of brown fat in both the brain and the body’s tissues. They showed that deleting the gene in mice that produces this protein stopped brown fat from functioning.

Now, in a study published today in the journal Nature Communications, an international team of researchers led by Drs Vanessa Pellegrinelli and Vivian Peirce, and Professor Vidal-Puig has shown that increasing how much BMP8b mice can produce increases the function of their brown fat. This implies that BMP8b, which is found in the blood, could potentially be used as a drug to increase the amount of brown fat amount in humans as well as making it more active. Further research will be necessary to demonstrate if this is the case.

To carry out their research, the team used mice that had been bred to produce higher levels of the protein in adipose tissue. As anticipated, they found that increasing BMP8b levels changed some of the white fat into brown fat, a process known as beiging and thus increased the amount of energy burnt by the tissue.

They showed that higher levels of BMP8b make the tissue more sensitive to adrenergic signals from nerves – the same pathway target by adrenergic agonist drugs. This may allow lower doses of these drugs to be used to activate brown fat in people, hence reducing their risk of heart attack.

Unexpectedly, but importantly, the team also found that the molecule increased the amount of blood vessels and nerves in brown fat.

“There have been a lot of studies that have found molecules that promote brown fat development, but simply increasing the amount of brown fat will not work to treat disease – it has to be able to get enough nutrients and be turned on,” says Professor Vidal-Puig, lead author of the study.

Co-author Dr Sam Virtue, also from the Institute of Metabolic Science, adds: “It’s like taking a one litre engine out of a car and sticking in a two litre engine in its place. In theory the car can go quicker, but if you only have a tiny fuel pipe to the engine and don’t connect the accelerator pedal it won’t do much good. BMP8b increases the engine size, and fits a new fuel line and connects up the accelerator!”

̽��ֱ��research was funded by the British Heart Foundation, Medical Research Council, European Research Council, WHRI-Academy and Wellcome.

Read more on ̽��ֱ��Conversation website: Could this be a solution for the obesity crisis?

Reference
Pellegrinelli, V et al. Adipocyte-1 secreted BMP8b mediates adrenergic-induced remodeling of the neurovascular network in adipose tissue. Nature Communications; 26 Nov 2018; DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-07453-x

Our bodies contain two types of fat: white fat and brown fat. While white fat stores calories, brown fat burns energy and could help us lose weight. Now, scientists at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge have found a way of making the white fat ‘browner’ and increasing the efficiency of brown fat.

There have been a lot of studies that have found molecules that promote brown fat development, but simply increasing the amount of brown fat will not work to treat disease

Toni Vidal-Puig

TeroVesalainen

Weight loss nutrition

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Monkeys regulate metabolism to cope with environment and rigours of mating season

fpjl2 — Wed, 20 Apr 2016 08:28:06 +0000

New research on male Barbary macaques indicates that these primates have a flexible metabolic physiology which helps them survive by changing the speed of chemical reactions within their bodies, and consequently levels of energy, depending on temperature and availability of food.

̽��ֱ��study also suggests that the metabolic rate of male macaques spikes dramatically during mating season, potentially providing a higher "aerobic capacity" at a point when males mate with multiple females a day, as well as fight other males for mating opportunities.

Levels of thyroid hormones start to build around a month before mating season, with these metabolism-predicting hormones doubling in some animals at the peak of the season. This is only the second time that changes in metabolic physiology in the run up to mating season have been seen in a vertebrate, the first being in house sparrows.

̽��ֱ��natural habitat of Barbary macaques, in the mountains of Morocco and Algeria, is one of the most extreme environments in which any non-human primate lives.

Temperatures in winter drop as low as -5 degrees centigrade, with deep snow covering the ground for months at a time. Summer temperatures can reach 40 degrees, with food and water becoming scarce.

Researchers say that the metabolic flexibility they have observed in macaques may be an echo in one of our primate cousins of a vital physiological mechanism that has allowed humans to adapt to the planet's extreme climates – from Saharan deserts to the Arctic.

"Barbary macaques increase and decrease cellular activity and energy consumption in order to respond to challenges of climate, sustenance and reproduction. In a sense, what happens at a macro level – animal behaviour – is reflected at a micro, cellular level," said lead author Dr Jurgi Cristóbal-Azkarate of Cambridge's Division of Biological Anthropology, who conducted the research with colleagues from the universities of Roehampton and Lincoln.

"Understanding the rules and mechanisms that govern key decisions such as energy allocation in existing primates is important in gaining insight into how our ancestors were able to thrive outside tropical Africa," he said.

"Our knowledge of traits that allowed hominins to adapt to new climatic conditions is practically restricted to those that leave a traceable fossil record. We currently have a very limited understanding of the importance of physiological mechanisms in human evolution. ̽��ֱ��Barbary macaques in the Atlas Mountains are an ideal model to help address this knowledge gap."

̽��ֱ��new findings are published today in the journal Biology Letters.

By collecting faeces dropped by the animals and analysing the samples, the researchers were able to assess levels of the thyroid hormone T3, which is known to provide an indicator of the 'basal' metabolic rate: the amount of energy expended to keep a body at rest.

̽��ֱ��thyroid has been shown to affect metabolism across multiple species, including humans, in whom underactive thyroids slow metabolic rates and can cause tiredness, weight gain and depression.

Samples were taken across a nine month period from adult males in two groups – one which has nearly half their food supplied by tourists, and one which has to rely only on the natural diet of foraging for plants and insects.

On average, the monkeys fed by tourists had levels of T3 that were 10% higher, suggesting that those on the natural diet had to conserve energy as well as forage for food. T3 levels also increased the longer animals in both groups had to spend foraging for food. This is in line with other findings in vertebrates showing that they reduce secretion of thyroid hormones to reduce metabolic rates and save energy when "nutritionally stressed".

As the area's climate went through its dramatic seasonal shifts, so too did the macaque metabolism. T3 levels dropped markedly from June to August, then began to rise as mating season approached in the early Autumn. While T3 dropped again after mating season, the levels stayed much higher during the harsh winter months.

"All mammals, and even more so primates, share a common physiology," said Cristóbal-Azkarate. "As with humans, Barbary macaques increase T3 production in winter. Metabolic rates increase in response to lower temperatures as a mechanism to generate more energy and consequently more heat."

Even rain affected T3 and metabolic rates, which increased in wet weather. Researchers say this may show the "high thermoregulatory cost of wet fur".

̽��ֱ��effect of the mating season on the macaques' T3 levels, and consequently their metabolic rates, was highly significant. At the height of the season, T3 levels of the males increased by an average of 80% between both groups. ̽��ֱ��average T3 increase in the wild feeding group was 98%.

"This was an unexpected and interesting finding, suggesting that males boost their metabolism in preparation for the energetic challenges both of mating and of competing with other males for access to females," said Cristóbal-Azkarate.

"Thyroid hormones are essential for sexual development and reproductive function in mammals – there is an important increase in T3 production during puberty, for example.

"To date, studies of male reproductive competition have focused almost exclusively on testosterone and stress hormones. However, our study suggests that there is a new player in the field of male reproductive competition: the thyroid, and metabolic rate."

Added Cristóbal-Azkarate: "This is the first time in which the effects of climate, nutrition and reproductive competition on thyroid hormone physiology have been studied simultaneously, in a naturalistic setting.

"By doing this, we have been able to learn about the way in which the flexibility of the metabolic physiology of Barbary macaques allows these primates – and perhaps other species, including humans – to balance the multiple energetic demands of their harsh and highly variable environment, and cope with ecological and social challenges."

̽��ֱ��flexible physiology of Barbary macaques in responding to extreme environmental conditions of their natural habitat may help shed light on the mechanisms that allowed our ancestors to thrive outside Africa, say researchers. New study also presents the first evidence for male primates boosting their metabolic physiology for mating.

Understanding the rules and mechanisms that govern key decisions such as energy allocation in existing primates is important in gaining insight into how our ancestors were able to thrive outside tropical Africa

Jurgi Cristóbal-Azkarate

NHK photo by Michael J. Sanderson/Ateles Films

Barbary Macaques in their natural habitat of the Atlas Mountains

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Could the food we eat affect our genes? Study in yeast suggests this may be the case

cjb250 — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 00:00:32 +0000

̽��ֱ��behaviour of our cells is determined by a combination of the activity of its genes and the chemical reactions needed to maintain the cells, known as metabolism. Metabolism works in two directions: the breakdown of molecules to provide energy for the body and the production of all compounds needed by the cells.

Knowing the genome – the complete DNA ‘blueprint’ of an organism – can provide a substantial amount of information about how a particular organism will look. However, this does not give the complete picture: genes can be regulated by other genes or regions of DNA, or by ‘epigenetic’ modifiers – small molecules attached to the DNA that act like switches to turn genes on and off.

Previous studies have suggested that another player in gene regulation may exist: the metabolic network – the biochemical reactions that occur within an organism. These reactions mainly depend on the nutrients a cell has available – the sugars, amino acids, fatty acids and vitamins that are derived from the food we eat.

To examine the scale at which this happens, an international team of researchers, led by Dr Markus Ralser at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the Francis Crick Institute, London, addressed the role of metabolism in the most basic functionality of a cell. They did so using yeast cells. Yeast is an ideal model organism for large scale experiments at it is much simpler to manipulate than animal models, yet many of its important genes and fundamental cellular mechanisms are the same as or very similar to those in animals and humans.

̽��ֱ��researchers manipulated the levels of important metabolites – the products of metabolic reactions – in the yeast cells and examined how this affected the behaviour of the genes and the molecules they produced. Almost nine out of ten genes and their products were affected by changes in cellular metabolism.

“Cellular metabolism plays a far more dynamic role in the cells than we previously thought,” explains Dr Ralser. “Nearly all of a cell’s genes are influenced by changes to the nutrients they have access to. In fact, in many cases the effects were so strong, that changing a cell’s metabolic profile could make some of its genes behave in a completely different manner.

“ ̽��ֱ��classical view is that genes control how nutrients are broken down into important molecules, but we’ve shown that the opposite is true, too: how the nutrients break down affects how our genes behave.”

̽��ֱ��researchers believe that the findings may have wide-ranging implications, including on how we respond to certain drugs. In cancers, for example, tumour cells develop multiple genetic mutations, which change the metabolic network within the cells. This in turn could affect the behaviour of the genes and may explain with some drugs fail to work for some individuals.

“Another important aspect of our findings is a practical one for scientists,” explains says Dr Ralser. “Biological experiments are often not reproducible between laboratories and we often blame sloppy researchers for that. It appears however, that small metabolic differences can change the outcomes of the experiments. We need to establish new laboratory procedures that control better for differences in metabolism. This will help us to design better and more reliable experiments.”

Reference
Alam, MT et al. ̽��ֱ��metabolic background is a global player in Saccharomyces gene expression epistasis. Nature Microbiology; 1 Feb. DOI: 10.1038/nmicrobiol.2015.30

Almost all of our genes may be influenced by the food we eat, according to new research published in the journal Nature Microbiology. ̽��ֱ��study, carried out in yeast – which can be used to model some of the body’s fundamental processes – shows that while the activity of our genes influences our metabolism, the opposite is also true and the nutrients available to cells influence our genes.

In many cases the effects were so strong, that changing a cell’s metabolic profile could make some of its genes behave in a completely different manner

Markus Ralser

Global Panorama

Fruits & Vegetables

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Stored fat fights against the body’s attempts to lose weight

cjb250 — Tue, 24 Nov 2015 09:22:25 +0000

Most of the fat cells in the body act to store excess energy and release it when needed but some types of fat cells, known as brown adipocytes, function primarily for a process known as thermogenesis, which generates heat to keep us warm. However, an international team of researchers from the Wellcome Trust-Medical Research Council Institute of Metabolic Sciences at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, UK, and Toho ̽��ֱ��, Japan, have shown that a protein found in the body, known as sLR11, acts to suppress this process.

Researchers investigated why mice that lacked the gene for the production of this protein were far more resistant to weight gain. All mice – and, in fact, humans – increase their metabolic rate slightly when switched from a lower calorie diet to a higher calorie diet, but mice lacking the gene responded with a much greater increase, meaning that they were able to burn calories faster.

Further examinations revealed that in these mice, genes normally associated with brown adipose tissue were more active in white adipose tissue (which normally stores fat for energy release). In line with this observation, the mice themselves were indeed more thermogenic and had increased energy expenditure, particularly following high fat diet feeding.

̽��ֱ��researchers were able to show that sLR11 binds to specific receptors on fat cells – in the same way that a key fits into a lock – to inhibit their ability to activate thermogenesis. In effect, sLR11 acts as a signal to increase the efficiency of fat to store energy and prevents excessive energy loss through unrestricted thermogenesis.

When the researchers examined levels of sLR11 in humans, they found that levels of the protein circulating in the blood correlated with total fat mass – in other words, the greater the levels of the protein, the higher the total fat mass. In addition, when obese patients underwent bariatric surgery, their degree of postoperative weight loss was directly proportional to the reduction in their sLR11 levels, suggesting that sLR11 is produced by fat cells.

In their paper the authors suggest that sLR11 helps fat cells resist burning too much fat during ‘spikes’ in other metabolic signals following large meals or short term drops in temperature. This in turn makes adipose tissue more effective at storing energy over long periods of time.

There is growing interest in targeting thermogenesis with drugs in order to treat obesity, diabetes and other associated conditions such as heart disease. This is because it offers a mechanism for disposing of excess fat in a relatively safe manner. A number of molecules have already been identified that can increase thermogenesis and/or the number of fat cells capable of thermogenesis. However to date there have been very few molecules identified that can decrease thermogenesis.

These findings shed light on one of the mechanisms that the body employs to hold onto stored energy, where sLR11 levels increase in line with the amount of stored fat and act to prevent it being ‘wasted’ for thermogenesis.

Dr Andrew Whittle, joint first author, said: “Our discovery may help explain why overweight individuals find it incredibly hard to lose weight. Their stored fat is actively fighting against their efforts to burn it off at the molecular level."

Professor Toni Vidal-Puig, who led the team, added: “We have found an important mechanism that could be targeted not just to help increase people’s ability to burn fat, but also help people with conditions where saving energy is important such as anorexia nervosa.”

Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation (BHF), which helped fund the research, said: “This research could stimulate the development of new drugs that either help reduce obesity, by blocking the action of this protein, or control weight loss by mimicking its action. Based on this promising discovery, we look forward to the Cambridge team’s future findings.

“But an effective medicine to treat obesity, which safely manages weight loss is still some way off. In the meantime people can find advice on healthy ways to lose weight and boost their heart healthy on the BHF website.”

̽��ֱ��study was part-funded in part by the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

Reference
Whittle, AJ, Jiang, M, et al. Soluble LR11/SorLA represses thermogenesis in adipose tissue and correlates with BMI in humans. Nature Communications; 20 November 2015

̽��ֱ��fatter we are, the more our body appears to produce a protein that inhibits our ability to burn fat, suggests new research published in the journal Nature Communications. ̽��ֱ��findings may have implications for the treatment of obesity and other metabolic diseases.

Our discovery may help explain why overweight individuals find it incredibly hard to lose weight. Their stored fat is actively fighting against their efforts to burn it off at the molecular level

Andrew Whittle

Alan Cleaver

Lose weight now

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Social yeast cells prefer to work with close relatives to make our beer, bread & wine

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 13:05:30 +0000

̽��ֱ��findings, published today in the open access journal eLife, could lead to new biotechnological production systems based on metabolic cooperation. They could also be used to inhibit cell growth by blocking the exchange of metabolites between cells. This could be a new strategy to combat fungal pathogens or tumour cells.

“ ̽��ֱ��cell-cell cooperation we uncovered plays a significant role in allowing yeast to help us to produce our food, beer and wine,” says first author Kate Campbell.

“It may also be crucial for all eukaryotic life, including animals, plants and fungi.”

Yeast metabolism has been exploited for thousands of years by mankind for brewing and baking. Yeast metabolizes sugar and secretes a wide array of small molecules during their life cycle, from alcohols and carbon dioxide to antioxidants and amino acids. Although much research has shown yeast to be a robust metabolic work-horse, only more recently has it become clear that these single-cellular organisms assemble in communities, in which individual cells may play a specialised function.

For the new study funded by the Wellcome Trust and European Research Council, researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the Francis Crick Institute found cells to be highly efficient at exchanging some of their essential building blocks (amino acids and nucleobases, such as the A, T, G and C constituents of DNA) in what they call metabolic cooperation. However, they do not do so with every kind of yeast cell: they share nutrients with cells descendant from the same ancestor, but not with other cells from the same species when they originate from another community.

Using a synthetic biology approach, the team led by Dr Markus Ralser at the Department of Biochemistry started with a metabolically competent yeast mother cell, genetically manipulated so that its daughters progressively loose essential metabolic genes. They used it to grow a heterogeneous population of yeast with multiple generations, in which individual cells are deficient for various nutrients.

Campbell then tested whether cells lacking a metabolic gene can survive by sharing nutrients with their family members. When living within their community setting, these cells could continue to grow and survive. This meant that cells were being kept alive by neighbouring cells, which still had their metabolic activity intact, providing them with a much needed nutrient supply. Eventually, the colony established a composition where the majority of cells did help each other out. When cells of the same species but derived from another community were introduced, social interactions did not establish and the foreign cells died from starvation.

When the successful community was compared to other yeast strains, which had no metabolic deficiencies, the researchers found no pronounced differences in how both communities grew and produced biomass. This is implies that sharing was so efficient that any disadvantage was cancelled out.

̽��ֱ��implications of these results may therefore be substantial for industries in which yeast are used to produce biomolecules of interest. This includes biofuels, vaccines and food supplements. ̽��ֱ��research might also help to develop therapeutic strategies against pathogenic fungi, such as the yeast Candida albicans, which form cooperative communities to overcome our immune system.

Reference

Kate Campbell, Jakob Vowinckel, Michael Muelleder, Silke Malmsheimer, Nicola Lawrence, Enrica Calvani, Leonor Miller-Fleming, Mohammad T. Alam, Stefan Christen, Markus A. Keller, and Markus Ralser

Self-establishing communities enable cooperative metabolite exchange in a eukaryote eLife 2015, https://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.09943

Baker’s yeast cells living together in communities help feed each other, but leave incomers from the same species to die from starvation, according to new research from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

̽��ֱ��cell-cell cooperation we uncovered plays a significant role in allowing yeast to help us to produce our food, beer and wine

Kate Campbell

Metabolic cooperation in a social Baker’s yeast community. Pictured is a two-day old yeast community that grows as a colony. Different colours indicate cells producing and consuming different metabolites and nutrients.

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Low-impact hub generates electrical current from pure plant power

lw355 — Fri, 06 Mar 2015 09:00:52 +0000

A prototype “green bus shelter” that could eventually generate enough electricity to light itself, has been built by a collaboration of ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge researchers and eco-companies.

̽��ֱ��ongoing living experiment, hosted by the Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Botanic Garden and open to the visiting public, is incorporated in a distinct wooden hub, designed by architects MCMM to resemble a structure like a bus shelter. Eight vertical green wall units – created by green wall specialists, Scotscape – are housed along with four semi-transparent solar panels and two flexible solar panels provided by Polysolar.

̽��ֱ��hub has specially adapted vertical green walls that harvest electrons naturally produced as a by-product of photosynthesis and metabolic activity, and convert them into electrical current. It is the brainchild of Professor Christopher Howe and Dr Paolo Bombelli of the Department of Biochemistry. Their previous experiments resulted in a device able to power a radio using the current generated by moss.

̽��ֱ��thin-film solar panels turn light into electricity by using mainly the blue and green radiation of the solar spectrum. Plants grow behind the solar glass, ‘sharing the light’ by utilising the red spectrum radiation needed for photosynthesis, while avoiding the scorching effect of UV light. ̽��ֱ��plants generate electrical currents as a consequence of photosynthesis and metabolic activity during the day and night.

“Ideally you can have the solar panels generating during the day, and the biological system at night. To address the world’s energy needs, we need a portfolio of many different technologies, and it’s even better if these technologies can operate in synergy,” said Bombelli.

̽��ֱ��structure of the hub allows different combinations of the photovoltaic and biological systems to be tested. On the north east aspect of the hub, plants receive light directly, without being exposed to too much direct sun. On the south west orientation, a green wall panel is housed behind a semi-transparent solar panel so that the effect on the plants and their ability to generate current can be monitored. Next to that, in the same orientation, a single solar panel stands alone, and two further panels are also mounted on the roof.

“ ̽��ֱ��combination of horticulture with renewable energy production constitutes a powerful solution to food and resource shortages on an increasingly populated planet,” explained Joanna Slota-Newson from Polysolar. “We build our semi-transparent solar panels into greenhouses, producing electrical energy from the sun which can in turn be used to power irrigation pumps or artificial lighting, while offering a controlled environment to improve agricultural yields. In this collaboration with Cambridge ̽��ֱ��, the public can experience the plants’ healthy growth behind Polysolar panels.”

̽��ֱ��green wall panels in the hub are made from a synthetic material containing pockets, each holding a litre of soil and several plants. ̽��ֱ��pockets are fitted with a lining of carbon fibre on the back, which acts as an anode to receive electrons from the metabolism of plants and bacteria in the soil, and a carbon/catalyst plate on the front which acts as a cathode.

When a plant photosynthesises, energy from the sun is used to convert carbon dioxide into organic compounds that the plant needs to grow. Some of the compounds – such as carbohydrates, proteins and lipids – are leached into the soil where they are broken down by bacteria, which in turn release by-products, including electrons, as part of the process.

Electrons have a negative charge so, when they are generated, protons (with a positive charge) are also created. When the anode and cathode are connected to each other by a wire acting as an external circuit, the negative charges migrate between those two electrodes. Simultaneously, the positive charges migrate from the anodic region to the cathode through a wet system, in this case the soil. ̽��ֱ��cathode contains a catalyst that enables the electrons, protons and atmospheric oxygen to recombine to form water, thus completing the circuit and permitting an electrical current to be generated in the external circuit.

̽��ֱ��P2P hub therefore generates electrical current from the combination of biological and physical elements. Each element of the hub is monitored separately, and members of the public can track the findings in real time, at a dedicated website and on a computer embedded in the hub itself.

Margherita Cesca, Senior Architect and Director of MCMM Architettura, the hub’s designer, is pleased that it has garnered so much interest. “This prototype is intended to inspire the imagination, and encourage people to consider what could be achieved with these pioneering technologies. ̽��ֱ��challenging design incorporates and showcases green wall and solar panels as well as glass, creating an interesting element which sits beautifully within Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Botanic Garden,” she said.

Bombelli added: “ ̽��ֱ��long-term aim of the P2P solar hub research is to develop a range of self-powered sustainable buildings for multi-purpose use all over the world, from bus stops to refugee shelters.”

̽��ֱ��P2P project was supported by a Partnership Development Award grant from the ̽��ֱ��’s EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account.

P2P is an outreach activity developed under the umbrella of the BPV (BioPhotoVoltaic) project working in collaboration with green technology companies including MCMM, Polysolar and Scotscape. ̽��ֱ��BPV project includes scientists from the Departments of Biochemistry, Plant Sciences, Physics and Chemistry at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, together with the ̽��ֱ�� of Edinburgh, Imperial College London and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cape Town.

Green wall technology and semi-transparent solar panels have been combined to generate electrical current from a renewable source of energy both day and night.

This prototype is intended to inspire the imagination, and encourage people to consider what could be achieved with these pioneering technologies

Margherita Cesca, MCMM Architettura

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Metabolism may have started in our early oceans before the origin of life

cjb250 — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 15:12:59 +0000

In a study funded by the Wellcome Trust and the European Research Council researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge reconstructed the chemical make-up of the Earth’s earliest ocean in the laboratory. ̽��ֱ��team found the spontaneous occurrence of reaction sequences which in modern organisms enable the formation of molecules essential for the synthesis of metabolites. These organic molecules, such as amino acids, nucleic acids and lipids, are critical for the cellular metabolism seen in all living organisms

̽��ֱ��detection of one of the metabolites, ribose 5-phosphate, in the reaction mixtures is particularly noteworthy, as RNA precursors like this could in theory give rise to RNA molecules that encode information, catalyze chemical reactions and replicate.

It was previously assumed that the complex metabolic reaction sequences, known as metabolic pathways, which occur in modern cells, were only possible due to the presence of enzymes. Enzymes are highly complex molecular machines that are thought to have come into existence during the evolution of modern organisms. However, the team’s reconstruction reveals that metabolism-like reactions could have occurred naturally in our early oceans, before the first organisms evolved.

Life on Earth began during the Archean geological eon almost 4 billion years ago in iron-rich oceans that dominated the surface of the planet. This was an oxygen-free world, pre-dating photosynthesis, when the redox state of iron was different and much more soluble to act as potential catalysts. In these oceans, iron, other metals and phosphate facilitated a series of reactions which resemble the core of cellular metabolism occurring in the absence of enzymes.

̽��ֱ��findings suggest that metabolism predates the origin of life and evolved through the chemical conditions that prevailed in the worlds earliest oceans.

“Our results show that reaction sequences that resemble two essential reaction cascades of metabolism, glycolysis and the pentose-phosphate pathways, could have occurred spontaneously in the earth’s ancient oceans,” says Dr Markus Ralser from the Department of Biochemistry at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the National Institute for Medical Research, who led the study.

“In our reconstructed version of the ancient Archean ocean, these metabolic reactions were particularly sensitive to the presence of ferrous iron which was abundant in the early oceans, and accelerated many of the chemical reactions that we observe. We were surprised by how specific these reactions were,” he added.

̽��ֱ��conditions of the Archean ocean were reconstructed based on the composition of various early sediments described in the scientific literature which identify soluble forms of iron as one of the most frequent molecules present in these oceans.

Alexandra Turchyn from the Department of Earth Sciences at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, one of the co-authors of the study said: “We are quite certain that the earliest oceans contained no oxygen, and so any iron present would have been soluble in these oxygen-devoid oceans. It’s therefore possible that concentrations of iron could have been quite high”.

̽��ֱ��different metabolites were incubated at temperatures of 50-90˚C, similar to what might be expected close to the hydrothermal vents of an oceanic volcano. These temperatures would not support the activity of conventional protein enzymes. ̽��ֱ��chemical products were separated and analyzed by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry.

Some of the observed reactions could also take place in water but were accelerated by the presence of metals that served as catalysts. “In the presence of iron and other compounds found in the oceanic sediments, we observed 29 metabolism-like chemical reactions, including those that produce some of the essential chemicals of metabolism, for example precursors to the building blocks of proteins or RNA,” says Dr Ralser.

“These results indicate that the basic architecture of the modern metabolic network could have originated from the chemical and physical constraints that existed on Earth billions of years ago.”

Copy adapted from an original press release from the Wellcome Trust.

Reference
Keller et al. (2014) Mol Syst Biol 10:725. Non-enzymatic glycolysis and pentose phosphate pathway-like reactions in a plausible Archean ocean

̽��ֱ��chemical reactions behind metabolism – the processes that occur within all living organisms in order to sustain life – may have formed spontaneously in the Earth’s early oceans, according to research published today.

̽��ֱ��basic architecture of the modern metabolic network could have originated from the chemical and physical constraints that existed on Earth billions of years ago

Markus Ralser

Dhilung Kirat

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