Quantum Science Concepts in Enhancing Sensing and Imaging Technologies Applications for Biology: Proceedings of a Workshop (2021) / Chapter Skim
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4 Biology for Quantum
4 Biology for Quantum
Pages 44-54
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From page 44... ...
. O'Malley's group has isolated, investigated, and analyzed anaerobes from the digestive tracts of herbivores, and is now building imaging tools as a step toward bioengineering microorganisms that can degrade plant waste faster (see Figure 4-1)
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From page 45... ...
Overcoming these challenges, O'Malley's team isolated anaerobic fungal spores directly from their animal sources, cultured them, and sequenced their genomes. Within these fungi's genomes, they found the largest and most comprehensive array of biomass-degrading enzymes among sequenced microorganisms, a genomic profile that likely enables these fungi to assist in the breakdown of lignans (Haitjema et al., 2017; Henske et al., 2017; Mondo et al., 2017; Solomon et al., 2016)
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From page 46... ...
Department of Energy to build imaging tools capable of nondestructively capturing anaerobic enzyme actions in vivo to demystify the lignan degradation process. They plan to synthesize quantum dots attached to nanobodies, direct these nanobodies to cellulosomes in vivo, image their kinetics via multimodal methods, and adapt existing imaging techniques to create 3D structures (Podolsky et al., 2019)
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From page 47... ...
One key aspect of Arabidopsis root stem cell regulation is its transcription factors. These move between cells and form protein complexes with different stoichiometries to create the "just right" conditions for stem cell division (Benfey et al., 1993; Cruz-Ramírez et al., 2012; Di Laurenzio et al., 1996; Sozzani et al., 2010)
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From page 48... ...
Current limitations, such as studying plants in natural soil, could be overcome with emerging quantum technologies such as quantum dots or other nanoparticles. Topp's lab is working to capture the 3D structure of an entire freely grown root system via multimodal sensing to create digital models that can be used to study plant–environment dynamics.
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From page 49... ...
Sozzani agreed, adding that in addition to time and expense, sensing tools create questions about data, data management, and cyber infrastructure.
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From page 50... ...
Syntrophic Interspecies Microbial Interactions and Extracellular Electron Transfer in the Environment Victoria Orphan Orphan studies how microorganism interactions -- specifically the direct passage of electrons between organisms known as extracellular electron transfer -- affect the cycling of carbon and nutrients through the biosphere. This cycling process is known to be important in microbial metal respiration and was recently discovered to be important to interspecies syntrophy, the process by which different species pass metabolites and nutrients to each other.
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From page 51... ...
. Revealing Mechanisms for Stabilizing Organic Carbon by Microbial– Mineral Interactions: Innovative Chemical Imaging Alice Dohnalkova Dohnalkova uses electron microscopy, its coupled analyses, multiscale imaging correlated with multiple methodologies, and chemical imaging to study microbial processes in biogeochemical environments such as soil.
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From page 52... ...
Two-photon quantum approaches may be able to image deeper into samples, study larger interaction areas, and identify transcriptional states of different microbes and their heterogeneous gene expression. Quantum dots are promising because they have been used to monitor multiple fluorophores over longer lifetimes, but they can be destructive.
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From page 53... ...
Orphan pointed to the inability to replicate the wild environment in the laboratory, which necessitates new quantum tools and sensors to image deep structures in real ecosystems. Dohnalkova agreed that the laboratory environment is different, adding that the dehydration process, required for imaging, unnaturally collapses plant systems.
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From page 54... ...
Shank noted that items of low abundance are very difficult to measure or retrieve without disrupting system balance. Infrared Photodetectors An attendee asked Shank if infrared photodetectors could help penetrate soil opacity.
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