{"title":"Curcumol inhibits hepatocellular carcinoma proliferation through miRNA-124/STAT3 pathway: Network pharmacology and experimental validation","authors":"Gui-yu Li , Ji-yong Lin","doi":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2024.100270","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2024.100270","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Objective</h3><div>Hepatocellular carcinoma <strong>(</strong>HCC) is the most common type of liver cancer and is one of the most common global cancers. <em>Curcuma zedoaria (Christm.) Roscoe</em> is a traditional Chinese herb that has been used for thousands of years in China to treat various types of cancer. Curcumol is one of its primary bioactive sesquiterpenes and has been reported to possess antitumor properties; however, the underlying mechanisms in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are largely unknown. The aim of this study was to reveal the mechanism of curcumol treating HCC based on the network pharmacology and experimental verification.</div></div><div><h3>Materials and Methods</h3><div>Targets of HCC and curcumol were identified. The drugs and disease targets were intersected by <em>Venn Diagram.</em> The KEGG pathway enrichment analysis of curcumol treating HCC was analyzed through the R 3.6.1 software. The effects of curcumol on the inhibition of HCC cell line HepG2 growth and its pro-apoptotic activity were evaluated by cell counting kit-8 and flow cytometry. The expression of microRNA-124 (miRNA-124) mRNA was detected by quantitative real-time PCR. HepG2 cells were transfected with a miRNA mimic and inhibitor. The expression of STAT3 and its phosphorylation were induced by IL-6 and detected by western blotting.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>MicroRNAs in cancer is a significant enrichment signaling pathway for curcumol treating HCC, according to the KEGG pathway analysis. Curcumol effectively inhibited HepG2 cell growth at 50–150 μg/ml, while it had low toxicity to normal LO2 cells. Using flow cytometry, curcumol strongly promoted apoptosis in HepG2 cells and was more potent than the miRNA-124 mimic, whereas the miRNA-124 inhibitor reduced the pro-apoptotic effect of curcumol. Western blotting revealed that curcumol significantly downregulated the overexpression of STAT3 and its phosphorylation in interleukin-6 induced HepG2 cells, whereas an increased level of STAT3 was observed in the miRNA-124 inhibitor transfected cells after curcumol treatment compared to untransfected cells. The level of miRNA-124 was changed up to 5.87-fold by curcumol treatment.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusions</h3><div>The mechanism underlying the effect of curcumol on inhibition and pro-apoptosis of HepG2 cell growth is possibly related to the miRNA-124/STAT3 pathway.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":52676,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Biotechnology","volume":"9 ","pages":"Article 100270"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143136614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Taru Koitto , Deepika Dahiya , Martina Huusela , Merja Penttilä , Emma Master
{"title":"Phylogenetically distinct fungal expansins show different binding preferences towards cellulosic materials and enhance cellulase activity","authors":"Taru Koitto , Deepika Dahiya , Martina Huusela , Merja Penttilä , Emma Master","doi":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2025.100296","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2025.100296","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Expansins and expansin-like proteins are found in plants and microbes, and can disrupt the cellulosic microfibril network of plant cell walls. While plant expansins play a role in cell wall formation, microbial expansin-like proteins reportedly enhance the activity of lignocellulolytic enzymes. Herein, two novel fungal expansin-like proteins, <em>Ama</em>EXLX1 from <em>Allomyces macrogynus</em> and <em>Apu</em>EXLX1 from <em>Aureobasidium pullulans</em>, were recombinantly produced in <em>Pichia pastoris</em>. While both <em>Ama</em>EXLX1 and <em>Apu</em>EXLX1 retain typical expansin structure, they share low sequence identity (22.5 %) and different predicted pI values (5.8 and 8.8, respectively), which was expected to impact their action on cellulosic substrates. Accordingly, adsorption of the proteins on cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) and the impact of the expansin-like proteins on the hydrolysis of CNF by an endoglucanase (Cel7B) was investigated using quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D). <em>Ama</em>EXLX1 showed higher affinity towards cellulose compared to <em>Apu</em>EXLX1, which was correlated to missing key aromatic residues in the polysaccharide binding surface of <em>Apu</em>EXLX1. The pretreatment of a CNF film with <em>Ama</em>EXLX1 and <em>Apu</em>EXLX1 increased the initial rate of Cel7B activity. This study underscores similarities between the impacts that bacterial and fungal expansin-like proteins can have on the enzymatic deconstruction of cellulose, and sequence properties that could impact expansin performance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":52676,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Biotechnology","volume":"9 ","pages":"Article 100296"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143942178","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ranking economic and environmental performance of feedstocks used in bio-based production systems","authors":"Dania Muhieddine Orfali , Samir Meramo , Sumesh Sukumara","doi":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2025.100275","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2025.100275","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Biotechnology offers renewable alternatives for producing food, materials, and numerous functional compounds. While rampant human activities are disrupting planets’ geophysical flows, it is urgent to develop sustainable solutions with novel feedstocks and innovative valorization pathways. With the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance circularity, new raw materials termed the next-generation feedstocks (<em>NGFs</em>), such as carbon dioxide, methane, methanol, formic acid, and acetic acid, have emerged as potential feedstocks for bio-based processes. So far, no such review exists that compares the performance of conventional, sugar, lignocellulosic, algae-based feedstocks, and <em>NGFs</em>, which biotechnology could upcycle into a wide range of products. In this review, the economic and environmental performances of the feedstocks are analyzed, and quantifications are presented and standardized based on techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment models. The main parameters for comparison included the geographical location, unit production cost, and environmental impact categories. The results show that the economic and environmental performances are highly variable among the different feedstocks and their processing routes, also depicting evident tradeoffs. Carbon dioxide, sugar cane molasses and glycerol from waste streams are performing better on assessed indicators overall than other potential feedstocks. Nonetheless, this designed data source is the first step for reliable feedstock selection based on sustainability criteria.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":52676,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Biotechnology","volume":"9 ","pages":"Article 100275"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143395072","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Boryana Borisova , Hristina Nocheva , Ivan Iliev , Marie Laronze-Cochard , Stéphane Gérard , Stoyko Petrin , Dancho Danalev
{"title":"Corrigendum to “Synthesis and analgesic activity of new analogs of FELL tetrapeptide containing D-Phe in the first position” [Curr. Res. Biotechnol. 8 (2024) 100249]","authors":"Boryana Borisova , Hristina Nocheva , Ivan Iliev , Marie Laronze-Cochard , Stéphane Gérard , Stoyko Petrin , Dancho Danalev","doi":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2025.100283","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2025.100283","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52676,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Biotechnology","volume":"9 ","pages":"Article 100283"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143824400","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Joanna Bensz , Dariusz Sołdacki , Zilin Ma , Farhan Bin Matin , Maima Matin , Atanas G. Atanasov
{"title":"Insights from antiaging-related X discussions: A six-year #Longevity hashtag analysis study","authors":"Joanna Bensz , Dariusz Sołdacki , Zilin Ma , Farhan Bin Matin , Maima Matin , Atanas G. Atanasov","doi":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2025.100280","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2025.100280","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As social media platforms continue to play an increasingly significant role in shaping public discourse and disseminating scientific information, understanding how longevity and aging-related topics are discussed online has become crucial for researchers and healthcare professionals. This study investigates the global discourse on longevity and aging through the analysis of the hashtag #Longevity on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) over a six-year period from August 1, 2018, to August 1, 2024. A total of 382 032 posts were shared by 109 935 users across 200 countries. The analysis focused on revealing key themes, geographical distribution, sentiment analysis, and the most frequently mentioned supplements and drugs related to longevity. The results show a high level of engagement with the hashtag, primarily driven by users from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom and Canada. Sentiment analysis revealed predominantly positive attitudes towards longevity-related topics, with a slight but statistically significant (p < 0.0001) decline during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The study identified nicotinamide mononucleotide, rapamycin, and green tea as the most frequently mentioned supplements or drugs in longevity discussions. Notably, there was a significant increase in discussions about niacin derivatives, particularly nicotinamide mononucleotide, during and after the pandemic period. This study highlights the importance of social media as a tool for gauging public interest and sentiment towards scientific topics like longevity, providing valuable insights for researchers, healthcare professionals, and policymakers to enhance science communication and public engagement.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":52676,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Biotechnology","volume":"9 ","pages":"Article 100280"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143548276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
O. Bortone , S. Fiorenza , M. Baldassarre , N. Falco , M. Amidi , T. Markkula , P.A. Netti , E. Torino
{"title":"Design of a thermal stress microfluidic platform to screen stability of therapeutic proteins in pharmaceutical formulations","authors":"O. Bortone , S. Fiorenza , M. Baldassarre , N. Falco , M. Amidi , T. Markkula , P.A. Netti , E. Torino","doi":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2025.100273","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2025.100273","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Therapeutic proteins have great potentialities for the care of a wide spectrum of diseases, for which other small synthetic drugs result ineffective. Due to challenges related to their immunogenicity, the journey of biologics into clinics still faces obstacles. Among the causes of protein immunogenicity, their natural propensity to aggregation is crucial, indeed, to study their stability, pharmaceutical formulations are generally exposed to diverse environmental physicochemical conditions. Traditional approaches to explore protein behavior are effort-demanding, lengthy and expensive, resulting in a limited knowledge of biomolecule stability. There is an urgent need to develop faster and more cost-effective technologies for biological formulation development. In this work, the conceptualization, design and implementation of a modular and automated microfluidic platform to provide thermal stress to highly concentrated and viscous pharmaceutical formulations is presented. The microfluidic platform validity in terms of reliability and comparability to a forced degradation batch-wise stimulation is demonstrated by thermally stimulating and analyzing through SE-HPLC (Size Exclusion – High Performance Liquid Chromatography) different high concentration (> 100 mg/ml) therapeutic nanobody-based formulations. Remarkably, the ranking of the formulations returned by the microfluidic thermal stress platform follows the same trend obtained through well-established industrial in-batch stimulations. Furthermore, data coming from microfluidic stimulations well correlates to outcomes coming from industrial methodologies for storage and accelerated stability studies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":52676,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Biotechnology","volume":"9 ","pages":"Article 100273"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143136460","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cultivation of the Oligo-Mouse-Microbiota OMM12 in the peristaltic mixed tubular bioreactor PETR","authors":"David Vorländer, Kristin Hoffmann, Katrin Dohnt","doi":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2025.100294","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2025.100294","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The intestinal microbiota plays a crucial role in human health and disease, and is therefore of great interest in various research areas. However, studies with humans are limited and difficult to control, leading to a growing demand for sophisticated bioreactor systems that can mimic human intestinal conditions <em>in vitro</em>. The main objective of this study is to compare the <em>in vitro</em> growth of a defined microbiota in the recently published PEristaltic mixed Tubular bioReactor (PETR) with previously published <em>in vivo</em> data for the same microbiota. PETR simulates various colonic conditions, including peristaltic mixing, dialytic water and metabolite removal, and a temporally constant and longitudinally progressive pH gradient in a continuously operated tubular bioreactor. The Oligo-Mouse-Microbiota OMM<sup>12</sup> was chosen as model microbiota and consists of 12 bacteria representing the major phyla of the mouse intestine. During 10<!--> <!-->d continuous cultivation in PETR, community composition was regularly analyzed using strain-specific qPCR. The results were consistent with the formation of organic acids measured by HPLC. After approximately 6<!--> <!-->d, the optical density, concentrations of organic acids, and the microbiota composition remained relatively stable. Despite the different intestinal conditions of humans and mice, several similarities between reactor cultivation and gnotobiotic mouse model confirm PETR as a suitable system for microbiota research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":52676,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Biotechnology","volume":"9 ","pages":"Article 100294"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143907644","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rajeev K. Singla , Himel Mondal , Shailja Singla , Ronita De , Sahar Behzad , Mihnea-Alexandru Găman , Siva Sai Chandragiri , Merisa Cenanovic , Jayanta Kumar Patra , Jennifer R. Depew , Hemanth Kumar Boyina , Abdulkadir Yusif Maigoro , Soojin Lee , Omar M. Atrooz , Gitishree Das , Fabien Schultz , Emad Mohamed Abdallah , Hitesh Chopra , Jamil Ahmad , Rupesh K. Gautam , Bairong Shen
{"title":"Exploring nutritional supplement use for countering respiratory tract infections through an X (formerly Twitter)-based survey","authors":"Rajeev K. Singla , Himel Mondal , Shailja Singla , Ronita De , Sahar Behzad , Mihnea-Alexandru Găman , Siva Sai Chandragiri , Merisa Cenanovic , Jayanta Kumar Patra , Jennifer R. Depew , Hemanth Kumar Boyina , Abdulkadir Yusif Maigoro , Soojin Lee , Omar M. Atrooz , Gitishree Das , Fabien Schultz , Emad Mohamed Abdallah , Hitesh Chopra , Jamil Ahmad , Rupesh K. Gautam , Bairong Shen","doi":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2025.100282","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2025.100282","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Respiratory tract infections are a common health issue, driving interest in preventive strategies like nutritional supplements, while evidence on their usage and effectiveness remains limited. In this context, social media platforms, particularly X (formerly Twitter), provide a unique opportunity to gather large-scale public health-related data.</div></div><div><h3>Objectives</h3><div>In this study, we aimed to survey participants’ uses and opinions on nutritional supplements in prevention or treatment of respiratory tract infections, by using X.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>A survey was conducted between 1st and 15th December 2022. A single open-ended question “Which are the best dietary supplements to counteract respiratory infections?“ was asked. One week after the start of the survey, a poll was posted to get more relevant information and boost the survey’s reach. Total endorsements were calculated for each tweet posted as the total sum of replies, retweets, and likes.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>The open-ended question received a total of 118 retweets, 39 quotes, and 371 likes, while the poll received 56 retweets, 13 quotes, and 67 likes. A total of 495 replies, 2,251 retweets, 5,118 likes, and 148 quotes were received for the question and its related tweets. Vitamin D (1,607 endorsements), zinc (1,347 endorsements), vitamin C (803 endorsements), magnesium (694 endorsements), and honey (661 endorsements) were the nutritional supplements that received most endorsements.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusion</h3><div>Various foods, drinks, and natural ingredients have been suggested as potentially helpful for counteracting respiratory infections. Approximately half of respondents indicated using such supplements for themselves. The result of this study supports the idea that the X platform can be used as an effective survey tool to study global health-related behaviours and trends.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":52676,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Biotechnology","volume":"9 ","pages":"Article 100282"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143935131","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Marcus V.M.V. Amaral , Cláudia B. Carraro , Amanda C.C. Antoniêto , Mariana N. Costa , Thais F.C. Fraga-Silva , Ualter G. Cipriano , Rodrigo P.F. Abuná , Tamara S. Rodrigues , Ronaldo B. Martins , Andreia M. Luzenti , Glaucia R. Caruso , Priscyla D. Marcato , Vania L.D. Bonato , Dario S. Zamboni , Bergman M. Ribeiro , Sônia N. Báo , Joao S. da Silva , Flávio P. Veras , Roberto N. Silva
{"title":"Biogenic silver nanoparticles produced by Trichoderma reesei inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection, reduce lung viral load and ameliorate acute pulmonary inflammation","authors":"Marcus V.M.V. Amaral , Cláudia B. Carraro , Amanda C.C. Antoniêto , Mariana N. Costa , Thais F.C. Fraga-Silva , Ualter G. Cipriano , Rodrigo P.F. Abuná , Tamara S. Rodrigues , Ronaldo B. Martins , Andreia M. Luzenti , Glaucia R. Caruso , Priscyla D. Marcato , Vania L.D. Bonato , Dario S. Zamboni , Bergman M. Ribeiro , Sônia N. Báo , Joao S. da Silva , Flávio P. Veras , Roberto N. Silva","doi":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2025.100277","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2025.100277","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), posed a significant global health challenge and still demands efforts to develop new therapies. In this study, we investigated the potential of biogenic silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) synthesized by the fungus <em>Trichoderma reesei</em> to combat SARS-CoV-2 infection. In silico studies showed that AgNPs, ranging from 7 nm to 50 nm, have high affinity for spike protein from different variant of SARS-CoV-2. Our findings show that AgNPs effectively do not affect cell viability in Calu-3 cells, inhibit viral infection in Vero-E6 cells and progression of infection <em>in vitro</em>. Additionally, AgNPs impair caspase-1 activation, lactate dehydrogenase release and IL-1β production by human monocytes. Moreover, our study reveals that AgNPs treatment significantly alleviated acute lung injury induced by SARS-CoV-2 infection in Syrian hamsters. This suggests that AgNPs treatment effectively impairs viral replication or propagation within lung tissue, highlighting its potential as an antiviral agent against SARS-CoV-2. Further investigations are warranted to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of action of AgNPs and to assess their safety and efficacy in clinical settings. Nonetheless, our findings offer promising insights into the development of novel therapeutic strategies for combating COVID-19 and reducing its associated morbidity and mortality.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":52676,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Biotechnology","volume":"9 ","pages":"Article 100277"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143372916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Somil Thakur, Rajnish Kaur Calay, Mohamad Y. Mustafa, Fasil E. Eregno, Ravindra R. Patil
{"title":"Importance of substrate type and its constituents on overall performance of microbial fuel cells","authors":"Somil Thakur, Rajnish Kaur Calay, Mohamad Y. Mustafa, Fasil E. Eregno, Ravindra R. Patil","doi":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2025.100272","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.crbiot.2025.100272","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Microbial Fuel Cells (MFC) have emerged as a potential wastewater treatment technology that utilizes metabolic processes of microorganisms present in the wastewater to disintegrate organic substrates and harness direct electricity. This paper reviews the potential of different wastewater types as a suitable substrate for microbial activities in MFCs. Substrate composition (carbon source, nutrient content and inhibitory compounds) directly affects the microbial growth, wastewater treatment potential, electron transfer rate and power harvested. Readily biodegradable substrates such as acetate and glucose promote microbial metabolism and electron transport, thus resulting in enhanced power generation. Substrates such as municipal or agricultural wastewater that constitute both simple and complex organic matter require longer breakdown durations but can provide MFCs with long term operational stability. On the other hand, substrates such as leachate from landfills, mining wastewater etc. are generally unsuitable for regular operations. The paper discusses the challenges such as suitability of various wastewaters, unpredictability of composition, presence of inhibitory chemicals like heavy metals or toxic organics that can subdue the microbial activity and reduce efficiency of a MFC reactor. It aims to identify the relationship between the substrate characteristics and MFC performance in order to select the substrate for achieving optimal output from MFC technology. The suitable substrates that exhibit optimal performance in terms of current and power output, coulombic efficiency, and reduction in chemical oxygen demand are identified.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":52676,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Biotechnology","volume":"9 ","pages":"Article 100272"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143136613","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}