Search

Plant tissue cultures have been widely used in both fundamental and applied types of research on various biological species, and the scientific interest to transfer that technology in industrial scale has been rapidly growing. The use of in vitro technology for commercial propagation of different plant species and the production of bioactive compounds from them has become profitable industry worldwide. In the past decades, the progress in plant tissue culture technology was directed towards the introduction of the liquid medium for cultivation under submerged conditions in different bioreactor types, and automation of the entire process. Some applications of modified bioreactor systems and their importance for the advancement of plant biotechnology in the fields of agriculture, medicine, and pharmacy are discussed in this review., Растителните тъканни култури се използват широко във фундаментални и приложни изследвания на различни биологични видове, а научният интерес за трансфер на тази технология в промишлен мащаб бързо нараства. Използването на in vitro технологии за комерсиално размножаване на различни растителни видове и производството на биологично активни съединения от тях се превърнаха в печеливша индустрия в световен мащаб. През последните десетилетия напредъкът в технологията на растителното тъканно култивиране се насочи към въвеждането и използването на течна хранителна среда за култивиране при различни условия, осигурени от технически различни типове биореактори и към автоматизация на целия процес. В този обзор са разгледани някои приложения на модифицирани биореакторни системи и тяхното значение за развитието на растителната биотехнология в областта на земеделието, медицината и фармацията.

Many articles have been published on scale-down concepts as well as additive manufacturing techniques. However, information is scarce when miniaturization and 3D printing are applied in the fabrication of bioreactor systems. Therefore, garnering information for the interfaces between miniaturization and 3D printing becomes important and essential. The first goal is to examine the miniaturization aspects concerning bioreactor screening systems. The second goal is to review successful modalities of 3D printing and its applications in bioreactor manufacturing. This paper intends to provide information on anaerobic digestion process intensification by fusion of miniaturization technique and 3D printing technology. In particular, it gives a perspective on the challenges of 3D printing and the options of miniature bioreactor systems for process high-throughput screening.

Grape juice can be easily contaminated with ochratoxin A (OTA), one of the known mycotoxins with the greatest public health significance. Among the different approaches to decontaminate juice from this mycotoxin, microbiological methods proved efficient, inexpensive and safe, particularly the use of yeast or yeast products. To ascertain whether immobilisation of the yeast biomass would lead to successful decontamination, alginate beads encapsulating Candida intermedia yeast cells were used in our experiments to evaluate their OTA-biosorption efficacy. Magnetic calcium alginate beads were also prepared by adding magnetite in the formulation to allow fast removal from the aqueous solution with a magnet. Calcium alginate beads were added to commercial grape juice spiked with 20μg/kg OTA and after 48h of incubation a significant reduction (>80%), of the total OTA content was achieved, while in the subsequent phases (72–120h) OTA was slowly released into the grape juice by alginate beads. Biosorption properties of alginate-yeast beads were tested in a prototype bioreactor consisting in a glass chromatography column packed with beads, where juice amended with OTA was slowly flowed downstream. The adoption of an interconnected scaled-up bioreactor as an efficient and safe tool to remove traces of OTA from liquid matrices is discussed. This publication was made possible by NPRP grants # NPRP 4-259-2-083 and # NPRP 8-392-4- 003 from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation).

A new expression system for Lactococcus lactis based on the salt inducible BusA promoter and the BusR repressor gene of L. lactis MG1363 was developed. To achieve salt induction, the expression of BusR was modulated by introducing mutations to its promoter sequence. An activity of 6.0 μkat l−1 of the model enzyme Lactobacillus amylovorus α-amylase was achieved in the bioreactor cultivation. The major advantage of the current expression system is that no additions of inducing agents are needed into bioreactor cultivations.

Serogroup B outer membrane vesicles (OMV) with iron regulated proteins (IRP) from Neisseria meningitidis constitute the antigen for the vaccine against the disease caused by this bacterium. Aiming to enhance final OMV concentration, seven batch experiments were carried out under four different conditions: (i) with original Catlin medium; (ii) with original Catlin medium and lactate and amino acids pulse at the 6th cultivation hour; (iii) with Catlin medium with double initial concentrations of lactate and amino acids and (iv) Catlin medium without glycerol and with double initial concentrations of lactate and amino acids. The cultivation experiments were carried out in a 7-L bioreactor under the following conditions: 36 °C, 0.5 atm, overlay air 1 L/min, agitation: 250–850 rpm, and O 2 control at 10%, 20 h. After lactate and amino acids exhaustion, cell growth reached stationary phase and a significant release increase of OMV was observed. According to the Luedeking & Piret model, OMV liberation is non-growth associated. Glycerol was not consumed during cultivation. The maximum OMV concentration value attained was 162 mg/L with correspondent productivity of 8.1 mg/(L h) employing Catlin medium with double initial concentrations of lactate and amino acids. The obtained OMV satisfied constitution and protein pattern criteria and were suitable for vaccine production.