A joint research group led by Associate Professor Tomohiro Shimada of the Faculty of Agriculture, Meiji University and the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) has succeeded, for the first time in the world, in comprehensively identifying all the transcription factors in a single cell (Escherichia coli) that are necessary for the long-term survival of bacteria in soil.
This result is expected to reduce the environmental burden by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from soil, decreasing the use of chemical fertilizers by optimizing material circulation in the soil, and reducing the amount of excess nitrogen sources running off into the environment.
It has been reported that emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), which is considered to be one of the greenhouse gases, from land, including soil, are about 12 times higher than those from human activities. Nitrous oxide (N2O), which has a greenhouse effect about 290 times greater than CO2, is produced by the excessive addition of chemical fertilizers to soil and the activity of microorganisms in the soil. Furthermore, nutrients such as nitrogen that are not absorbed by plants flow into the outside environment, such as rivers, damaging the ecosystem and placing a burden on the environment. Given this situation, there is a demand for technology that can appropriately control the activity of microorganisms in soil and reduce the environmental burden.
* The cumulative effect of emitting 1 kg of each gas on global warming over a certain period of time (100 years in this case) is compared to that of carbon dioxide (Ministry of the Environment) https://www.env.go.jp/policy/hakusyo/h03/7824.html Excerpt)
Paper information:【Scientific Reports】Identification of a comprehensive set of transcriptional regulators involved in the long-term survivability of Escherichia coli in soil
