Team:SCAU-China/Description
Desertification is becoming a serious global problem. Great efforts have been put into the desertification control by introducing various methods. China has developed various policies, methods to control desertification, including sustainable grazing practice, sustainable cultivation practices, planting of wind-shelter forests, returning marginal cropland into forests, water use quotas and other tools.
Acetobacter xylinus is one of bacteria the species that is able to synthesis and secret large amount of cellulose. The cellulose from genus Acetobacter is chemically identical to cellulose from plant sources but in a higher hydroscopicity. The unique physical properties of bacterial cellulose led to the development of one new desertification combating strategy.
Biological soil crusts are communities of living organisms on the soil surface in arid and semi-arid ecosystems.The most obvious change in the ecological .environment after the immobilization of the sand is the formation of desert biological crust in the sand, which has an active impact on precipitation redistribution near the surface and the structure composition of plant communities.
Desert-living cyanobacteria are the early former of biological desert crust formation. As a pioneer organism, the cyanobacteria can secreted polysaccharides during their growth process not only provide energy, but also fix the sandy soil through the algal filament and improve the ability to resist wind erosion. The Microcolus vaginatus, is a kind of desert-living cyanobacteria we chose which is an ideal bioreactor for producing bacterial cellulose.
We cloned seven key genes, the bcs genes, that are critically required for bacterial cellulose synthesis from Acetobacter xylinus and expressed them in cyanobacteria. 4 genes, bcs A/B/C/D, are for the construction of complex, other 3 genes are regulators. We will cultivate the transgenic bacteria cellulose production cyanobacteria in enrichment medium and seed them in arid soil. Additionally, we employed computer modeling and prediction to optimize the production of cellulose. Finally, we successfully achieved the cellulose production from the transgenic cyanobacteria and its cultivation on sands. Together, we have developed a new and low-cost method for desertification control!
School's name:SCAU
Member's name:SCAU
Designed by:SCAU