MAES News
September 1, 2009
- MAES Researcher Helps Improve Cloning Method for Zebra Fish
- KBS Dairy Project Promotes Economic, Environmental Sustainability
- MSU Receives $1.7 Million in Stimulus Funding for Biofuel Sustainability Research
- Reaching Out: Program Aids Foster Care Youth during College Years
- MAES Scientist Studies Links between Gastric Bypass, Immune System
- Microbes Provide Solutions to Energy Issues
- MAES Researcher Seeks Predictability in Equation
- Research Supports Calls to Study Health Benefits of Nitrate and Nitrite
- New Faculty Member
A team of Michigan State University researchers has developed a new, more efficient way of cloning zebra fish, a breakthrough that could have implications for human health research.
The work of the MSU researchers, detailed in the recent issue of the journal Nature Methods, is important because zebra fish, small striped fish common to many aquariums, are quickly becoming the animal of choice for many researchers.
"After the mouse, it is the most commonly used vertebrate in genetic studies," said MAES animal science researcher Jose Cibelli, one of the paper’s co-authors. "It is used in cancer research and cardiovascular research because they have many of the same genes we have."
For more than 20 years, Cibelli said, zebra fish have also served as an excellent model for understanding normal development and birth defects. More recently, research with zebra fish has extended to model human diseases and to analyze the formation and functions of cell populations within organs.
Previous methods of cloning zebra fish have had very low success rates. But using this new method, the number of cloned fish that can be obtained from an adult fin cell or an embryonic tail clip increased by 2 percent to 13 percent respectively.
The normal cloning technique uses an unfertilized egg and a donor cell. The DNA is removed from the egg and replaced by the DNA taken from the donor. The egg cell is then coaxed into dividing. The resulting fish is an exact genetic copy of the donor.
Using Cibelli and colleagues’ technique, the egg is gently removed from the female zebra fish and placed in a solution of ovarian fluid from a Chinook salmon.
"This worked well," he said, "because it kept the egg inactive for some time. It gave us two or three hours with which to work.
"It was also useful that we are working in Michigan. The state’s Department of Natural Resources was very generous in helping us collect fluid from female Chinooks."
Then, borrowing a technique from human in vitro fertilization, the DNA was removed from the egg by using a laser.
Next, Cibelli’s team devised a novel, more efficient way of transplanting the donor cells into the egg.
"The tricky part was finding a way to get into the egg," he said. "We used the same entrance that sperm uses. There was only one spot on the egg, and we had to find it."
Zebra fish are so useful in research because their eggs are transparent and the fish's development is easy to follow.
Improving on the techniques of zebra fish cloning also is important because currently only the mouse remains the best model for gene targeting.
"So far the mouse is the only one from which you can delete genes in a reliable fashion," Cibelli said. "What researchers do is mutate a gene, abolish its function completely, and then study the consequences."
The main author of the publication "Novel Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer Method in Zebra Fish" is Kannika Siripattarapravat, a doctoral student in Cibelli's Cellular Reprogramming Laboratory.
Other authors include Patrick Venta, an associate professor of microbiology and molecular genetics, and C.C. Chang, a professor of pediatrics and human development.
KBS Dairy Project Promotes Economic, Environmental Sustainability
The W.K. Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) dairy herd hoofed it to a new pasture-based
facility featuring automated milking stalls and energy-efficient design in August.
State-of-the-art milking robotics aside, economic and environmental sustainability are driving forces. Located in Hickory Corners north of Kalamazoo, the KBS dairy includes two pastures for 120 lactating Holstein cows, plus dry cows and heifers.
A grand opening and public open house for the new pasture-based dairy at KBS took place Aug. 19.
"Although the conventional dairy operation at KBS had been very successful over the years, we felt there was a need to establish a dairy research and education facility that would complement other sustainable agricultural research programs at KBS," project coordinator Mat Haan said. "We see transitioning to a pasture-based system as a niche market for us. It's something that's not being done in many places. We also want to develop a system that better addresses the needs of small and medium-sized dairy farmers."
Twin robotic milking systems, the second such installation in the state, will demonstrate labor-saving technology that promises to improve the quality of life on family farms by freeing owners from being tied down by strict milking schedules.
Likewise, the cows.
"Because the robot is a voluntary system, cows are free to come and go as they choose throughout the day," Haan explained. "If a cow decides she wants to milk at 2 a.m., she can, as opposed to the farmer bringing the whole herd together and working them through the parlor in one big group.
"The robot has sensors that take a lot of data on every cow," Haan added. "For example, it will measure the cow's body weight, eating behavior, milking time per quarter, total and quarter milk yield and milk quality. So every time a cow is milked, the farmer gets a lot of information that can be used to make management decisions."
The free-stall barn includes water mattress bedding and automatic manure scrapers. It also is the first working agricultural building to seek Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, certification, Haan said.
Among other energy efficiency and resource conservation features, it uses an automatic sidewall curtain system that rises or lowers to regulate temperature. The design also maximizes sunlight to reduce the need for electric lighting.
The dairy will anchor education and outreach programs showing how ecological, social and economic principles can be evaluated on a smaller scale than those associated with larger, more conventional dairy farms, KBS Director Kay Gross said.
"If you’re going to be working with dairy producers in the community, some of them will be doing pasture, some will be doing organic and some will be doing confinement. It’s important to be knowledgeable about the whole spectrum of options available to dairy farmers," she said.
"The creation of this pasture-based dairy facility is a logical extension of the strong tradition of ecological research at KBS," Gross added. "Integration of the row-crop and dairy production research programs at the station provides a unique opportunity to examine agriculture from an integrated, whole-system perspective."
Major support for the project came through a $3.5 million 2007 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Food Systems and Rural Development program. MSU Extension, the Michigan Agricultural Experimental Station and the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources also contributed support. Kellogg Biological Station is one of 15 field stations in the MAES network.
MSU Receives $1.7 Million in Stimulus Funding for Biofuel Sustainability Research
Michigan State University scientists will use approximately $2 million of $8.099 million in new funding allocated to the Department of Energy (DOE) Great
Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) to study the environmental benefits and consequences of cellulosic biofuel crops.
Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the DOE provided $4 million to enhance and accelerate GLBRC sustainability research and allocated another $4.099 million for plant cell wall imaging technology.
The money allocated to biofuel sustainability research will be used to study carbon cycling, water quality and greenhouse gas emissions associated with biofuel cropping systems, as well as develop more complex modeling technology, said Phil Robertson, MAES crop and soil scientist, who leads GLBRC sustainability research. Modeling activities require intricate parallel computing to integrate satellite imagery and land use information into mathematical models of biofuel production for the entire United States. The models, based on results from experiments in the field, will allow researchers and decision makers to see possible answers to "what if" questions about various biofuel crops in various landscapes.
"Quantitative models, together with the underlying field research, will allow us to design biofuel cropping systems that are both profitable and environmentally sustainable," Robertson said. "We need to ensure that the crops we'll be using for cellulosic energy do in fact contribute to climate stabilization and cleaner air and water, as well as provide biodiversity benefits such as habitat for birds and beneficial insects. Recovery Act funding will allow us to make better decisions sooner."
The MSU Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) is the principal field site for GLBRC sustainability research, which is also conducted at other locations across Michigan as well as in Wisconsin. KBS is one of 15 MAES field research stations. At KBS, researchers have established long-term biofuel cropping systems to provide detailed information on their productivity and environmental performance. MSU researchers are investigating energy yield, water use and carbon balance of various crops such as switchgrass, hybrid poplars and grass mixtures, including restored prairie.
"Different crops also provide different kinds of habitats for birds and insects," Robertson explained. "We're also studying the potential for cellulosic biofuels to provide biodiversity benefits such as pest control and pollination for plants and crops in other parts of the landscape. The general idea is to provide the information needed to design future biofuel cropping systems that provide environmental benefits rather than to simply mitigate potential harm."
Michigan State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison are partners in the GLBRC. University of Wisconsin scientists will lead the research analyzing plant cell walls.
"About half of the total funds will be used to provide a new experimental core facility and computational resources to analyze and alter the structure of plant cell walls, the polymer complex that provides the sugars for cellulosic biofuels," said Tim Donohue, GLBRC director and UW-Madison professor of bacteriology. "The new magnetic imaging and associated computational resources will allow new, high-throughput approaches that are crucial for teams across the GLBRC. The Recovery Act funding allows us to move rapidly and deploy a new, state-of-the-art approach to the cellulosic biofuels portfolio of the GLBRC and other DOE-funded centers."
Reaching Out: Program Aids Foster Care Youth during College Years
The numbers paint a dismal picture. Though some 75 percent of the nation’s foster care children say they'd like to attend college, just 13 percent actually enroll -- and of those, only 4 percent graduate.
Michigan State University, a national leader in foster care research and outreach, has launched an innovative program to attack the problem.
Foster Care Alumni Services is a comprehensive initiative that offers assistance to MSU students in an effort to help them remain in school and ultimately graduate. Services include community mentoring, scholarships, care packages and help lining up everything from student employment to housing to financial aid.
There's even a summer camp for foster care children still in high school on what to expect in college.
"The MSU foster camp provides young people in the foster care system a chance to have new experiences, learn new skills, meet new friends and dream about a brighter future than the often dismal past that many have experienced," said John Seita, MAES scientist and associate professor of social work.
During the 2008-09 academic year, MSU identified and contacted former foster care youth attending the university, inviting them to register for services on a newly created Web site. Each student who registered was then contacted by a representative of the requested service provider.
In all, 209 former foster youth were identified and contacted. The program will continue annually as MSU reaches out to new students who indicate that they were in foster care on their federal financial aid forms.
MSU was the first university in the state to offer foster care alumni scholarships, and the program has grown to include an array of services. Foster Care Alumni Services is offered through several university departments, primarily the School of Social Work and researchers Seita and Angelique Day, both foster care alumni who now work to reform the foster care system.
Because Day lacked family support during her college years, she said she "just kind of jumped in blindly and figured it out as I went along."
"This program is designed to ensure that young people interested in coming to MSU don’t have to accept that challenge blindfolded," said Day, a research specialist in social work. "Young people coming out of foster care don't have parents or stable adults in their lives that they can go to when they are frustrated or overwhelmed in college -- and at that point they may make the decision to drop out."
Other participating MSU departments are the Office of Financial Aid, the Center for Service-Learning and Civic Engagement, MSU Extension, University Housing and the Department of Residence Life.
External support comes from the Capital Area United Way, Learn and Serve America, Michigan Campus Connect and the Comcast Foundation.
MAES Scientist Studies Links between Gastric Bypass, Immune System
Though the massive weight loss associated with gastric bypass surgery has many benefits, some patients may face malnutrition, poor wound healing and infection as their immune systems adjust to the extreme decrease in food consumption, an MAES researcher reports.
Pam Fraker, MAES biochemistry and molecular biology scientist, is working with MSU surgeon Pandu Yenumula at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing to monitor the health of patients undergoing gastric bypass surgery and see what effects the surgery has on the immune system and inflammation.
"The immune system is a very large and complex system, replenishing billions of new cells each day," Fraker said. "A modest depletion in nutritional intake can have a significant impact on the immune system’s ability to defend the body."
Patients undergoing gastric bypass surgery, Fraker said, often see reduced inflammation and improved metabolic status as they lose weight.
"We also are trying to find out if there are any adverse effects of morbid obesity on certain facets of immune defense, and then determine if bypass surgery has beneficial effects," she said.
Using mass spectrometry -- which analyzes the elemental composition of blood tissue samples and measures trace metals to monitor patients’ nutritional status -- Fraker works with patients who are part of the Sparrow Weight Loss Clinic. Her team provides a progressive assessment of the patient’s immune defense and measures changes in metabolic profiles and inflammatory factors before and after surgery.
Yenumula, who performs about 20 weight-related surgeries each month, said having Fraker as part of his team provides valuable insight into a patient’s health as he or she recovers from surgery.
"When it comes to the morbidly obese, we have lot of research and studies that show the benefits that surgery can have on problems such as diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol and other issues," he said. "But we need to better understand how the immune system functions and adapts as patients lose weight."
Fraker's work with gastric bypass surgery is funded by the National Institutes of Health and MSU. Though she is working with morbidly obese patients, her research also can be applied to the overweight, which make up 60 percent of all Americans.
Fraker and several other professors at MSU, known as the MSU Metabolic Disease Group, are looking at a group of disorders and avenues of research associated with obesity.
"Our immune system has such an impact on so many facets of our bodies that we need to know what sort of impact the obesity epidemic is having on our immune defense system," Fraker said. "Do viruses survive longer in overweight or obese people? Do normal vaccination levels work effectively? How does obesity affect stem cell biology and bone marrow growth? These are just some of the questions we need to address."
Microbes Provide Solutions to Energy Issues
After three years of research, Gemma
Reguera, MAES microbiology and molecular genetics and crop and soil sciences researcher, has developed a process that can be harnessed to produce clean, cheap electricity and fuel from plant biomass.
Using a specific selection of metal-reducing microorganisms in the Geobacter species -- bacteria that are natural inhabitants of environments abundant in metals -- Reguera was able to design a microbial fuel cell that acts as a natural battery to convert plant biomass into electrical power and produces a high-yield, low-cost cellulosic ethanol product.
"Finding the exact combination was difficult because there are billions of microbes living in the soil and water," Reguera said. "By observing the natural processes of these organisms over time, we were able to reproduce these processes and develop a technology by matching up the right microbes.
"All the work of this process is done by bacteria inside a microbial fuel cell," Reguera said. "Some of the bacteria decompose plant material; others move electrons to survive. The electron-moving microorganisms such as those in Geobacter naturally replace metal oxides with electrodes to get energy. This process is similar to how we breathe oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide."
She said that producing ethanol is viewed as the main purpose, but having the fuel cell create electrical power as a byproduct has added benefits. In the future, farms could be powered by their own plant byproducts and fuel their tractors from the same microbial fuel cell.
Microbial fuel cells are attracting interest because they are inexpensive to manufacture and produce no harmful byproducts.
Reguera also is a member of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), a partnership between Michigan State and the University of Wisconsin-Madison funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to conduct basic research aimed at solving some of the most complex problems in converting natural materials to energy.
As part of her work with the GLBRC, Reguera has modified a type of Geobacter to live in the same conditions as Cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria are bacteria that produce energy from sunlight. The combination of these two types of bacteria means that the fuel cells can produce electricity directly from sunlight.
Reguera's next step is to make the fuel cells more efficient and successful at a larger scale. A team of Australian researchers is currently experimenting with microbial fuel cells to treat wastewater effluent from a brewery while producing power. Microbial fuel cells are also being tested in ethanol biorefineries to remove toxic products from biomass pretreatments while generating about 25 percent of a biorefinery’s electrical power needs.
"I tell my students 'you have to be very brave to be in my lab' because they have to know how to do the entire process from the primary research to application," Reguera said. "But they get really motivated when they see how small technologies can make huge impacts."
In addition to the MAES and the GLBRC, Reguera's work is funded by the Rackham Fund Foundation.
MAES Researcher Seeks Predictability in Equation
With exotic invaders such as garlic mustard plants threatening Michigan forest ecosystems and purple loosestrife crowding out native cattails in wetlands, improving the ability to predict and prevent damaging plant invasions is the aim of a research initiative spearheaded by an MAES plant evolutionary ecologist.
Jennifer Lau, based at the Kellogg Biological Station, won a four-year, $630,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to explore how genetic variation in native and non-native plant species affects biological invasions.
The research will focus on two common annual plants in the California coast range. The non-native burclover, Medicago polymorpha, is a shallow-rooted legume that can become invasive. The other is a closely related non-invasive native, Lotus wranglianus, also known as Chilean bird's-foot trefoil. Both plants are important in agriculture and natural ecosystems as forage and cover crops.
Lau contends that applying community genetics to invasion biology provides a broader understanding about what’s happening when different genotypes interact with a common environment.
"There is a tremendous amount of variation between individuals of a single species in traits that influence survival in different environments," Lau said. "For example, plants introduced to Michigan from warmer regions may have limited cold tolerance and, as a result, may not become invasive. However, a plant of the same species that came from the northern area of the species’ range is likely adapted to cooler temperatures. That plant may be able to survive cold winters and successfully invade. Similarly, genotypes of native plants may vary in their ability to resist invasion and/or coexist with invaders."
A common plant invader in Michigan is garlic mustard, an invasive species that threatens the state’s woodlands. Many land managers consider it to be one of the most potentially harmful and difficult to control invasive plants in the region.
"We're still trying to figure out what garlic mustard does, but it basically takes over an entire forest understory, compromising biodiversity and forest health," Lau said. "It somehow becomes a monoculture, crowding out forest understory natives such as jack-in-the-pulpit, trillium and trout lilies. I'm hopeful this research will shed more light on situations like this. My bet is that a successful invasion depends on the match between the genotype that happens to make it to the area and the other organisms that are already in that community and the climate and soil conditions of the habitat."
A better understanding of the invasion process may help prevent future adverse invasions and also may aid in ensuring the success of intentional introductions for production agriculture or biological control.
"This topic is both timely and important," said MAES director Steve Pueppke. "Such linkages between genetic variation and ecological processes were relatively unknown even five years ago. The results of this study will have important implications for both basic and applied ecology."
The research also will provide opportunities for training high school students in large-scale ecological field research at KBS. Lau and a graduate student will partner with teachers in the National Science Foundation-funded K-12 program at KBS to create curricula focused on biological invasions. Those will include a general introduction to biological invasions and community ecology, suggested field experiments on the community consequences of invasions and a brief statistical tutorial.
Research Supports Calls to Study Health Benefits of Nitrate and Nitrite
An MAES food science and human nutrition researcher is challenging health standards that consider nitrates and nitrites in food to be harmful.
Norman Hord's research suggests that although there are negative health effects associated with the use of nitrogen-based fertilizers and excessive nitrates in groundwater, nitrates and nitrites -- as they occur in plant foods -- may actually provide health benefits.
Nitrate and nitrite are naturally-occurring ions associated with the nitrogen cycle in soil and water. They are regulated in water and certain foods by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration because they have been associated with gastrointestinal cancer, blood disorders in infants and other health problems. The World Health Organization also has established a standard of 222 milligrams per day as an acceptable daily nitrate intake.
Most of the concern with these compounds relates to their presence in drinking water from shallow wells near farms and the consumption of processed meats. In most diets, however, between 70 and 80 percent of the nitrates comes from vegetables, government and research sources say.
"We and others have shown that components of vegetables and fruit that originate in the soil may function as nutrients by contributing to cardiovascular health," said Hord. "Since these components of plant foods have important health implications, the regulatory limits on the consumption of plant foods that contain nitrates and nitrites need to be seriously reconsidered."
Hord, the primary author of the study, collaborated with Nathan Bryan and Yaoping Tang at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. Their thesis and supporting arguments were published in the July 2009 issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
"We wanted to show the toxicity risk cited as the basis for federal regulatory levels for nitrate and nitrite are irrational because plant foods contain high concentrations of these food components," Hord said. "People consuming a variety of fruits and vegetables may be ingesting much more nitrate and nitrite than recommended -- more than 1000 milligrams -- with no adverse health effects. We're calling for a systematic reevaluation of the literature to highlight the potential beneficial contributions that nitrates and nitrites from vegetables and fruits make to cardiovascular health."
In an accompanying editorial, Martjin Katan from the Institute of Health Sciences at VU University in Amsterdam said it is undisputed that nitrates benefit arteries, and called for a trial to investigate whether consuming a food pattern rich in nitrate-containing vegetables is effective in lowering blood pressure.
Besides the MAES, the study was funded by MSU and the American Heart Association.
New Faculty Member
Zsofia Szendrei, assistant professor of entomology, became affiliated with the MAES in August. Her research focuses on solving vegetable insect problems in Michigan and implementing new pest management methods. Szendrei is particularly interested in combining multiple pest management approaches to target a particular pest problem, including biological and cultural controls, as well as behavior manipulation with plant/insect-produced volatiles, along with traditional control methods.
Before joining MSU, Szendrei served as a postdoctoral researcher at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service Invasive Insect Biocontrol and Behavior Laboratory in Beltsville, Md., from 2005 to 2007. She was a research associate at the Philip E. Marucci Center for Blueberry and Cranberry Research and Extension at Rutgers University from 2007 to 2009. Szendrei received her doctorate in entomology and her master's degree in horticulture from MSU in 2005 and 2001, respectively.
