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For promoting the diffusion of GSHP and making the technology more accessible to the general public, in the H2020 research project “CHeap and Efficient APplication of reliable Ground Source Heat exchangers and PumpS” (acronym Cheap-GSHPs) a tool for sizing these systems has been developed, as well as a Decision Support System (DSS) able to assist the user in the preliminary design of the most suitable configuration. For all these tools a common platform has been carried out considering climatic conditions, energy demand of buildings, ground thermal properties, heat pump solutions repository, as well as renewable energy database to use in synergy with the GSHPs. Since the aims of the tools are different, there are different approaches. The design tool is mainly addressed to designers. The calculation may be done in two ways: with a simplified method based on the ASHRAE approach and with a detailed calculation based on the numerical tool CaRM (Capacity-Resistance method). The DSS final aim is to support decision-making, by providing the stakeholders at all the level with a series of scenario. The Cheap-GSHPs project has developed a DSS tool aimed at accelerating the decision-making process of designers and building owners as well as increasing market share of the Cheap-GSHPs technologies. Hence the DSS generates different possible solutions based on a defined general problem, identifying the optimal solution. Both tools are presented in the paper, showing the potentialities provided by both software.

Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHP) are gaining interest for many applications and a very difficult task is to look at their affordability in urban environments with limited spaces. For this reason, the EU project GEO4CIVHIC has been funded. In order to set up different cases with different levels of retrofit and try to generalize results, the project focuses the activity on archetypes, i.e. buildings which may represent the usual type of building which may be found more frequently in urban environments around Europe. The analysis of the archetypes has been based on literature review and analysing the existing databases of buildings in Europe. The work allowed to determine a reference building for single family house and a building representing an apartment block for multi-users. In this latest case two types of possible uses have been examined: residential building and office building. In order to set up different levels of retrofit and cost-effective solutions, three different climates have been defined: warm climate, mild climate and cold climate. The climatic conditions do not only affect the energy demand of the building and the peak power needed for heating and cooling, but also determine different ways of buildings’ construction and define different levels of insulation. Last but not least, the buildings have been also subdivided into existing buildings, i.e. built up from 1960 to 2000 and historic buildings, i.e. buildings earlier than 1960. The paper presents the first step of the research which permitted to define the different archetypes, their dimensions and way they are constructed. Moreover, the different simulations allowed to define the energy needs of the buildings as well as the peak power for heating and cooling. This allows to create a matrix for the different levels of retrofit solutions which will be associated to related costs for a cost-benefit analysis to check the most achievable solutions.

Among compatible solutes, glycine betaine has various applications in the fields of nutrition, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics. Currently, this compound can be extracted from sugar beet plants or obtained by chemical synthesis, resulting in low yields or high carbon footprint, respectively. Hence, in this work we aimed at exploring the production of glycine betaine using the unicellular cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 as a photoautotrophic chassis. Synechocystis mutants lacking the native compatible solutes sucrose or/and glucosylglycerol-∆ sps , ∆ ggpS , and ∆ sps ∆ ggpS -were generated and characterized. Under salt stress conditions, the growth was impaired and accumulation of glycogen decreased by ∼50% whereas the production of compatible solutes and extracellular polymeric substances (capsular and released ones) increased with salinity. These mutants were used as chassis for the implementation of a synthetic device based on the metabolic pathway described for the halophilic cyanobacterium Aphanothece halophytica for the production of the compatible solute glycine betaine. Transcription of ORFs comprising the device was shown to be stable and insulated from Synechocystis' native regulatory network. Production of glycine betaine was achieved in all chassis tested, and was shown to increase with salinity. The introduction of the glycine betaine synthetic device into the ∆ ggpS background improved its growth and enabled survival under 5% NaCl, which was not observed in the absence of the device. The maximum glycine betaine production [64.29 µmol/gDW (1.89 µmol/mg protein)] was reached in the ∆ ggpS chassis grown under 3% NaCl. Taking into consideration this production under seawater-like salinity, and the identification of main key players involved in the carbon fluxes, this work paves the way for a feasible production of this, or other compatible solutes, using optimized Synechocystis chassis in a pilot-scale., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Ferreira, Pacheco, Rodrigues, Pinto, Lamosa, Fuente, Urchueguía and Tamagnini.)

Nowadays, the reconstruction of genome-scale metabolic models is a nonautomatized and interactive process based on decision making. This lengthy process usually requires a full year of one person's work in order to satisfactory collect, analyze, and validate the list of all metabolic reactions present in a specific organism. In order to write this list, one manually has to go through a huge amount of genomic, metabolomic, and physiological information. Currently, there is no optimal algorithm that allows one to automatically go through all this information and generate the models taking into account probabilistic criteria of unicity and completeness that a biologist would consider. This work presents the automation of a methodology for the reconstruction of genome-scale metabolic models for any organism. The methodology that follows is the automatized version of the steps implemented manually for the reconstruction of the genome-scale metabolic model of a photosynthetic organism, Synechocystis sp. PCC6803. The steps for the reconstruction are implemented in a computational platform (COPABI) that generates the models from the probabilistic algorithms that have been developed. For validation of the developed algorithm robustness, the metabolic models of several organisms generated by the platform have been studied together with published models that have been manually curated. Network properties of the models, like connectivity and average shortest mean path of the different models, have been compared and analyzed.

In this study, we show the use of direct external electrical stimulation of a jellyfish luminescent calcium-activated protein, aequorin, expressed in a transgenic yeast strain. Yeast cultures were electrically stimulated through two electrodes coupled to a standard power generator. Even low (1.5 V) electric pulses triggered a rapid light peak and serial light pulses were obtained after electric pulses were applied periodically, suggesting that the system is re-enacted after a short refraction time. These results open up a new scenario, in the very interphase between synthetic biology and cybernetics, in which complex cellular behavior might be subjected to electrical control., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Insects are associated with microorganisms that contribute to the digestion and processing of nutrients. The European Corn Borer (ECB) is a moth present world-wide, causing severe economical damage as a pest on corn and other crops. In the present work, we give a detailed view of the complexity of the microorganisms forming the ECB midgut microbiota with the objective of comparing the biodiversity of the midgut-associated microbiota and explore their potential as a source of genes and enzymes with biotechnological applications., Methodological/principal Findings: A high-throughput sequencing approach has been used to identify bacterial species, genes and metabolic pathways, particularly those involved in plant-matter degradation, in two different ECB populations (field-collected vs. lab-reared population with artificial diet). Analysis of the resulting sequences revealed the massive presence of Staphylococcus warneri and Weissella paramesenteroides in the lab-reared sample. This enabled us to reconstruct both genomes almost completely. Despite the apparently low diversity, 208 different genera were detected in the sample, although most of them at very low frequency. By contrast, the natural population exhibited an even higher taxonomic diversity along with a wider array of cellulolytic enzyme families. However, in spite of the differences in relative abundance of major taxonomic groups, not only did both metagenomes share a similar functional profile but also a similar distribution of non-redundant genes in different functional categories., Conclusions/significance: Our results reveal a highly diverse pool of bacterial species in both O. nubilalis populations, with major differences: The lab-reared sample is rich in gram-positive species (two of which have almost fully sequenced genomes) while the field sample harbors mainly gram-negative species and has a larger set of cellulolytic enzymes. We have found a clear relationship between the diet and the midgut microbiota, which reveals the selection pressure of food on the community of intestinal bacteria.

Uncoupling proteins (UCPs) are mitochondrial transporters that facilitate controlled dissipation of the proton gradient and thus regulate energetic efficiency. The heat generating capacity of UCP from brown adipose tissue was investigated in yeasts expressing the protein recombinantly under conditions in which the temperature of the growth medium was measured directly. A Liquid Culture Calorimeter (LCC) was built consisting of a thermally isolated culture flask able to keep yeast cultures warm without resorting to additional heating. The exact internal temperature of the cultures was monitored for 24h through a thermocouple connected to a data logger. Under these conditions, significant temperature increases (1 degrees C) in the media were recorded when yeast strains expressing endogenously active UCP1 mutants were grown. This is the first direct evidence, in a eukaryotic microbial model, of a temperature rise associated with uncoupling activity, and could be seen as the first step toward developing a biological heating device.