For centuries, mushrooms have been used as food and medicine in different cultures. More recently, many bioactive compounds have been isolated from different types of mushrooms. Among these, immunomodulators have gained much interest based on the increasing growth of the immunotherapy sector. Mushroom immunomodulators are classified under four categories based on their chemical nature as: lectins, terpenoids, proteins, and polysaccharides. These compounds are produced naturally in mushrooms cultivated in greenhouses. For effective industrial production, cultivation is carried out in submerged culture to increase the bioactive compound yield, decrease the production time, and reduce the cost of downstream processing. This review provides a comprehensive overview on mushroom immunomodulators in terms of chemistry, industrial production, and applications in medical and nonmedical sectors.
Lactic acid bacteria constitute a diverse group of industrially significant, safe microorganisms that are primarily used as starter cultures and probiotics, and are also being developed as production systems in industrial biotechnology for biocatalysis and transformation of renewable feedstocks to commodity- and high-value chemicals, and health products. Development of strains, which was initially based mainly on natural approaches, is also achieved by metabolic engineering that has been facilitated by the availability of genome sequences and genetic tools for transformation of some of the bacterial strains. The aim of this paper is to provide a brief overview of the potential of lactic acid bacteria as biological catalysts for production of different organic compounds for food and non-food sectors based on their diversity, metabolic- and stress tolerance features, as well as the use of genetic/metabolic engineering tools for enhancing their capabilities.
Yangia sp. ND199 is a moderately halophilic bacterium isolated from mangrove samples in Northern Vietnam, which was earlier reported to grow on several sugars and glycerol to accumulate poly(hydroxyalkanoates) (PHA). In this study, the potential of the bacterium for co-production of exopolysaccharides (EPS) and PHA was investigated. Genome sequence analysis of the closely related Yangia sp. CCB-M3 isolated from mangroves in Malaysia revealed genes encoding enzymes participating in different EPS biosynthetic pathways. The effects of various cultivation parameters on the production of EPS and PHA were studied. The highest level of EPS (288 mg/L) was achieved using sucrose and yeast extract with 5% NaCl and 120 mM phosphate salts but with modest PHA accumulation (32% of cell dry weight, 1.3 g/L). Growth on fructose yielded the highest PHA concentration (85% of CDW, 3.3 g/L) at 90 mM phosphate and higher molecular weight EPS at 251 mg/L yield at 120 mM phosphate concentration. Analysis of EPS showed a predominance of glucose, followed by fructose and galactose, and minor amounts of acidic sugars.
Recognizing the imperative to evaluate species recovery and conservation impact, in 2012 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) called for development of a "Green List of Species" (now the IUCN Green Status of Species). A draft Green Status framework for assessing species' progress toward recovery, published in 2018, proposed 2 separate but interlinked components: a standardized method (i.e., measurement against benchmarks of species' viability, functionality, and preimpact distribution) to determine current species recovery status (herein species recovery score) and application of that method to estimate past and potential future impacts of conservation based on 4 metrics (conservation legacy, conservation dependence, conservation gain, and recovery potential). We tested the framework with 181 species representing diverse taxa, life histories, biomes, and IUCN Red List categories (extinction risk). Based on the observed distribution of species' recovery scores, we propose the following species recovery categories: fully recovered, slightly depleted, moderately depleted, largely depleted, critically depleted, extinct in the wild, and indeterminate. Fifty-nine percent of tested species were considered largely or critically depleted. Although there was a negative relationship between extinction risk and species recovery score, variation was considerable. Some species in lower risk categories were assessed as farther from recovery than those at higher risk. This emphasizes that species recovery is conceptually different from extinction risk and reinforces the utility of the IUCN Green Status of Species to more fully understand species conservation status. Although extinction risk did not predict conservation legacy, conservation dependence, or conservation gain, it was positively correlated with recovery potential. Only 1.7% of tested species were categorized as zero across all 4 of these conservation impact metrics, indicating that conservation has, or will, play a role in improving or maintaining species status for the vast majority of these species. Based on our results, we devised an updated assessment framework that introduces the option of using a dynamic baseline to assess future impacts of conservation over the short term to avoid misleading results which were generated in a small number of cases, and redefines short term as 10 years to better align with conservation planning. These changes are reflected in the IUCN Green Status of Species Standard.