Guided Biotics® for the targeted reduction of ammonia production in agricultural practices

Guided Biotics® 用于有针对性地减少农业实践中氨的产量

• 批准号: 10080566
• 金额: $ 7.64万
• 依托单位: FOLIUM FOOD SCIENCE LIMITED
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Small Business Research Initiative
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=10080566
• 关键词: Guided; Biotics; targeted; reduction; ammonia

Ammonia is a caustic, highly irritating gas that poses several health and environmental concerns. Emissions of ammonia are particularly problematic in agricultural practices, which account for 88% of the UK's total ammonia emissions. Livestock housing is the main contributor to ammonia production, and it is here where the emissions can have severe consequences on the welfare and productivity of the animals, in addition to the safety of farm workers. Poultry are second only behind cattle in their contribution to ammonia emissions (DEFRA, 2020), and excessive ammonia levels in poultry housing renders the birds more susceptible to bacterial infections and is economically damaging for the farmer. The environmental impact of these emissions is especially harmful in areas of intensive poultry production, such as the Wye Valley. Here, river ecosystems are being decimated because ammonia leads to eutrophication; an excessive richness of nutrients in water bodies due to run-off from the farmland that gives rise to algal blooms.Digestion of dietary protein results in the excretion of uric acid and urea in the litter. Under favourable conditions, enzymes produced by microorganisms in the environment are then responsible for converting these into ammonia. Current strategies for controlling ammonia emissions are very much focussed on providing environmental conditions that slow the rate of ammonia generation; or involve the use of harsh chemicals to remediate or inhibit the activity of the enzymes that result in ammonia production. However, none of these strategies deal with the root source of the problem: production of the microbial enzymes that facilitate ammonia production.FOLIUM Science has developed a range of friendly, probiotic bacteria for use as a feed additive or environmental cleanup that can precisely and efficaciously reduce the production of specific bacterial enzymes. These probiotics contain naturally occurring elements that allow them to deploy the immune system of bacteria, called CRISPR-Cas, to specifically target regions of DNA that are responsible for the production of ammonia-generating enzymes. The proposed project will allow FOLIUM to develop this technology so that it can tackle the broad range of ammonia-producing enzymes likely to be found in the farm environment, and to ensure that the success of the technology translates from the lab to the farm. FOLIUM Science is well versed with development of products for the poultry sector and it is hoped that the successes of this project could be adapted to tackle ammonia production in other agricultural practices in the future.

氨是一种苛刻的，高度刺激性的气体，引起了一些健康和环境问题。氨的排放量在农业实践中尤其有问题，占英国氨排放量的88％。牲畜住房是氨产生的主要贡献者，在这里，除了农场工人的安全外，排放量还可能对动物的福利和生产力产生严重的影响。家禽对氨排放的贡献仅次于牛（Defra，2020年），而家禽住房中的氨水水平过高，使鸟类更容易受到细菌感染的影响，并且在经济上对农民造成了经济上的伤害。这些排放的环境影响在强化家禽生产的领域（例如Wye Valley）尤其有害。在这里，由于氨导致富营养化，河流生态系统被削减了。由于农田径流引起的水体中的养分过多，引起了藻类的膨胀。饮食蛋白的消化会导致垃圾中尿酸和尿素的排泄。在有利的条件下，环境中微生物产生的酶是将这些酶转化为氨的。当前控制氨排放的策略非常着重于提供降低氨发作速率的环境条件。或涉及使用苛刻的化学物质来补救或抑制导致氨产生的酶的活性。但是，这些策略都不涉及问题的根源：生产促进氨产生的微生物酶。FoliumScience开发了一系列友好，益生菌的细菌，用于用作饲料添加剂或环境清理，可以精确而有效地减少特定细菌酶的产生。这些益生菌包含自然存在的元素，使它们能够部署称为CRISPR-CAS的细菌的免疫系统，以特别靶向负责产生氨的酶的DNA区域。拟议的项目将允许Folium开发这项技术，以便它可以解决可能在农场环境中发现的广泛产生的氨的酶，并确保该技术的成功从实验室转变为农场。 Folium Science精通为家禽领域的产品开发，希望该项目的成功可以适应以来在其他农业实践中应对氨的生产。