Activators of microbial enzymes for enhanced C capture and decreased pathogen populations in arable soils.

一克耕地土壤可以含有超过10亿个活跃的细菌和古生菌细胞，它们与真菌一起形成土壤微生物群，提供各种生物地球化学功能。。微生物组及其一系列胞外和细胞酶具有从碳转化、营养循环到生物控制的多种功能，是通过使用化学激活剂进行靶向增强的一个未被开发的来源。该项目将研究调节土壤中的微生物碳酸氢酶(CAS)和葡萄糖脱氢酶(GDHs)以提高固碳和生物防治活性的潜力。CAS将二氧化碳转化为碳酸，GDH将葡萄糖转化为葡萄糖酸。这两种酸都可以加快土壤矿物中钙和镁的释放速度，这些元素与碳酸反应生成碳酸钙和碳酸镁，从而有效地隔离固体形式的二氧化碳，减少向大气中释放二氧化碳。这一及时的项目属于减缓气候变化和世界级生物科学的范畴，将调查在耕地土壤中添加酶激活剂以增加CAS和GDHs活性的有效性，增强这些土壤中的二氧化碳固定能力，以及对作物健康的生物防治效果。

A single gram of arable soil can contain more than a billion active bacteria and archaea cells that together with fungi form the soil microbiome, which provides a diverse range of biogeochemical functions. . With diverse functions ranging from C transformations, nutrient cycling and biocontrol, the microbiome and its array of extracellular and cellular enzymes represent an underexplored source for targeted enhancement through the use of chemical activators. This project will investigate the potential for modulating microbial carbonic anhydrases (CAs) and glucose dehydrogenases (GDHs) in soil to improve carbon sequestration and biocontrol activity. CAs convert CO2 to carbonic acid and GDH converts glucose to gluconic acid. Both acids can speed up the rate of release of Ca and Mg from soil minerals and these elements react with carbonic acid to produce calcium and magnesium carbonates thus effectively sequestering CO2 in solid form, and reducing CO2 release to the atmosphere. This timely project, falling under the remits of climate change mitigation and world class underpinning bioscience, will investigate the effectiveness of enzyme activators added to arable soils to increase the activity of CAs and GDHs, the enhancement CO2 sequestration in these soils and biocontrol effects on crop health.