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Nitrite-dependent anaerobic methane oxidation (n-damo) is a newly discovered biological process that couples anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) to nitrite reduction. In this study, three different inocula, methanogenic sludge, paddy soil, and freshwater sediment were used to enrich n-damo bacteria in three sequencing batch reactors (SBRs), and three n-damo enrichment cultures, C1, C2 and C3, were obtained, respectively. After 500 days of incubation, Methylomirabilis oxyfera-like bacteria and n-damo activities were observed in cultures C1, C2, and C3, and the specific activities were 0.8 ± 0.1, 1.4 ± 0.1, and 1.0 ± 0.1 μmol CH₄ h⁻¹ g⁻¹VSS, respectively. The copy numbers of 16S rRNA genes from cultures C1, C2, and C3 were 5.0 ± 0.4 × 10⁸, 6.1 ± 0.1 × 10⁹, and 1.0 ± 0.2 × 10⁹copies g⁻¹dry weight, respectively. The results indicated that paddy soil is an excellent inoculum for n-damo bacterial enrichment. This work expanded the alternative source of n-damo inoculum and benefited the further research of n-damo process.

In recent years, antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB) in soil have become research hotspots in the fields of public health and environmental ecosystems, but the effects of soil types and soil components on the occurrence and spread of ARGs still lack systematic sorting and in-depth research. Firstly, investigational information about ARB and ARGs contamination of soil was described. Then, existing laboratory studies about the influence of the soil component on ARGs were summarized in the following aspects: the influence of soil types on the occurrence of ARGs during natural or human activities and the control of exogenously added soil components on ARGs from the macro perspectives, the effects of soil components on the HGT of ARGs in a pure bacterial system from the micro perspectives. Following that, the similarities in pathways by which soil components affect HGT were identified, and the potential mechanisms were discussed from the perspectives of intracellular responses, plasmid activity, quorum sensing, etc. In the future, related research on multi-component systems, multi-omics methods, and microbial communities should be carried out in order to further our understanding of the occurrence and spread of ARGs in soil.

Biochar adsorption presents a potential remediation method for the control of hydrophobic organic compounds (HOCs) pollution in the environment. It has been found that HOCs bound on biochar become less bioavailable, so speculations have been proposed that HOCs will persist for longer half-life periods in biochar-amended soil/sediment. To investigate how biochar application affects coupled adsorption-biodegradation, nonylphenol was selected as the target contaminant, and biochar derived from rice straw was applied as the adsorbent. The results showed that there was an optimal dosage of biochar in the presence of both adsorption and biodegradation for a given nonylphenol concentration, thus allowing the transformation of nonylphenol to be optimized. Approximately 47.6% of the nonylphenol was biodegraded in two days when 0.005 g biochar was added to 50 mg/L of nonylphenol, which was 125% higher than the relative quantity biodegraded without biochar, though the resistant desorption component of nonylphenol reached 87.1%. All adsorptive forms of nonylphenol (frap, fslow, fr) decreased gradually during the biodegradation experiment, and the resistant desorption fraction of nonylphenol (fr) on biochar could also be biodegraded. It was concluded that an appropriate amount of biochar could stimulate biodegradation, not only illustrating that the dosage of biochar had an enormous influence on the half-life periods of HOCs but also alleviating concerns that enhanced HOCs binding by biochar may cause secondary pollution in biochar-modified environment.

Magnesium is essential for cellular life, but how it is homeostatically controlled still remains poorly understood. Here, we report that members of CNNM family, which have been controversially implicated in both cellular Mg 2+ influx and efflux, selectively bind to the TRPM7 channel to stimulate divalent cation entry into cells. Coexpression of CNNMs with the channel markedly increased uptake of divalent cations, which is prevented by an inactivating mutation to the channel’s pore. Knockout (KO) of TRPM7 in cells or application of the TRPM7 channel inhibitor NS8593 also interfered with CNNM-stimulated divalent cation uptake. Conversely, KO of CNNM3 and CNNM4 in HEK-293 cells significantly reduced TRPM7-mediated divalent cation entry, without affecting TRPM7 protein expression or its cell surface levels. Furthermore, we found that cellular overexpression of phosphatases of regenerating liver (PRLs), known CNNMs binding partners, stimulated TRPM7-dependent divalent cation entry and that CNNMs were required for this activity. Whole-cell electrophysiological recordings demonstrated that deletion of CNNM3 and CNNM4 from HEK-293 cells interfered with heterologously expressed and native TRPM7 channel function. We conclude that CNNMs employ the TRPM7 channel to mediate divalent cation influx and that CNNMs also possess separate TRPM7-independent Mg 2+ efflux activities that contribute to CNNMs’ control of cellular Mg 2+ homeostasis.

Ammonia oxidation is performed by both ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA). To explore the effect of ammonia concentration on the population dynamic changes of ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms, we examined changes in the abundance and community composition of AOA and AOB in different layers. Most of the archaeal amoA sequences were Nitrosotalea-related and the proportion that Nitrosotalea cluster occupied decreased in the surface layer and increased in the deep layer during the cultivation process. Nitrosopumilus-related sequences were only detected in the deep layer in the first stage and disappeared later. Both phylogenetic and quantitative analysis showed that there were increased Nitrosomonas-related sequences appeared in the surface layer where the ammonia concentration was the highest. Both AOA and AOB OTU numbers in different layers decreased under selective pressure and then recovered. The potential nitrification rates were 25.06 µg · N · L(-1) · g(-1) dry soil · h(-1) in the mid layer which was higher than the other two layers. In general, obvious population dynamic changes were found for both AOA and AOB under the selective pressure of exogenous ammonia and the changes were different in three layers of the soil column.

Presence of heavy metals in agriculture soils above the permissible limit poses threats to public health. In this study, concentrations of seven metals were determined in agricultural soils from Yuhang county, Zhejiang, China. Multivariate statistical approaches were used to study the variation of metals in soils during summer and winter seasons. Contamination of soils was evaluated on the basis of enrichment factor (EF), geoaccumulation index (Igeo), contamination factor (Cf), and degree of contamination (Cdeg). Heavy metal concentrations were observed higher in winter as compared to summer season. Cr and Cd revealed random distribution with diverse correlations in both seasons. Principal component analysis and cluster analysis showed significant anthropogenic intrusions of Zn, Cd, Pb, Cr, and Cu in the soils. Enrichment factor revealed significant enrichment (EF>5) of Zn, Cd, and Pb, whereas geoaccumulation index and contamination factor exhibited moderate to high contamination for Zn, Cr, Cd, and Pb. In light of the studied parameters, permissible limit to very high degree of contamination (Cdeg>16) was observed in both seasons.

The observed strong sorption of hydrophobic organic contaminants (HOCs) to biochar presents potential implications for HOCs bioavailability and bioaccessibility in sediments, while biochar could impact sediment microbial ecology. However, the comprehensive study on the effects of biochar on HOC biodegradation coupled with bioavailability and microbial ecology are rarely documented. In this paper, the effects of biochar on the biodegradation of nonylphenol (NP) were investigated using 3 different NP concentrations (20, 50 and 500 mg/Kg) in sediments amended with different percentage of rice straw biochar (RC). Results showed that the influence of RC on NP biodegradation varied with different NP concentrations. At low NP concentrations, RC suppressed NP biodegradation by reducing NP bioavailability, while at high NP concentrations, moderate RC addition promoted biodegradation by reducing toxicity of NP to microbes. The effects of NP on microbial community structures were significant ( P  < 0.01), but those of RC were not significant ( P  > 0.05). The RC affected microorganisms through altering NP toxicity, microbial quantity and activity, but not microbial community structures. This study indicated that there could be an optimal biochar percentage in biochar-sediment systems at different HOC concentrations, which strengthened HOC biodegradation process and accelerated biodegradation rate, forming adsorption-biodegradation coupled bioremediation.

Fe-loaded adsorbents have received increasing attention for the removal of arsenic in contaminated water or soil. In this study, Fe-loaded biochar was prepared from iron-impregnated corn straw under a pyrolysis temperature of 600°C. The ratio of crystalline Fe oxides including magnetite and natrojarosite to amorphous iron oxyhydroxide in the composite was approximately 2 : 3. Consisting of 24.17% Fe and 27.76% O, the composite exhibited a high adsorption capacity of 14.77 mg g−1 despite low surface areas (4.81 m2 g−1). The pH range of 2.0–8.0 was optimal for arsenate removal and the adsorption process followed the Langmuir isotherms closely. In addition, pseudo-second-order kinetics best fit the As removal data. Fe oxide constituted a major As-adsorbing sink. Based on the X-ray diffraction spectra, saturation indices, and selective chemical extraction, the data suggested three main mechanisms for arsenate removal: sorption of arsenate, strong inner-sphere surface complexes with amorphous iron oxyhydroxide, and partial occlusion of arsenate into the crystalline Fe oxides or carbonized phase. The results indicated that the application of biochar prepared from iron-impregnated corn straw can be an efficient method for the remediation of arsenic contaminated water or soil.

Biochars derived from animal manures may accumulate potentially toxic metals and cause a potential risk to ecosystem. The synchrotron-based X-ray spectroscopy, sequential fractionation schemes, bioaccessibility extraction and leaching procedure were performed on poultry and swine manure-derived biochars （denoted PB and SB, respectively） to evaluate the variance of speciation and activity of Cu and Zn as affected by the feedstock and pyrolysis temperature. The results showed that Cu speciation was dependent on the feedstock with Cu-citrate-like in swine manure and species resembling Cu-glutathione and CuO in poultry manure. Pyrolyzed products, however, had similar Cu speciation mainly with species resembling Cu-citrate, CuO and CuS/Cu2S. Organic bound Zn and Zn3（PO4）2-1ike species were dominant in both feedstock and biochars. Both Cu and Zn leaching with synthetic precipitation leaching procedure （SPLP） and toxicity characteristic leaching procedure （TCLP） decreased greatly with the rise of pyrolysis temperature, which were consistent with the sequential extraction results that pyrolysis converted Cu and Zn into less labile phases such as organic/ sulfide and residual fractions. The potential bioaccessibility of Zn decreased for both the PB and SB, closely depending on the content of non-residual Zn. The bioaccessibility of Cu, however, increased for the SB prepared at 300℃ 700℃, probably due to the increased proportion of CuO. Concerning the results of sequential fi＇actionation schemes, bioaccessibility extraction and leaching procedure, pyrolysis at 500℃ was suggested as means of reducing Cu/Zn lability and poultry manure was more suitable for pyrolysis treatment.