Biological Tools for and from the Environment

Abstract

At its highest level, the scope and audience of Trends in Biotechnology (TIBTECH) is applied biology. That description suffices to distinguish TIBTECH from some of the other Trends journals, which cover more mechanistic or phenomenological biology. It is a good starting point; it implies demonstrated usefulness. But it is still staggeringly broad.Does applied, for instance, mean tools, methods, and chemical entities derived from biology used to solve nonbiological problems, like performing metabolic engineering on microbes to produce industrially useful chemicals? [1xMetabolic burden: cornerstones in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering applications. Wu, G. et al. Trends Biotechnol. 2016; 34: 652–664Abstract | Full Text | Full Text PDF | PubMed | Scopus (40)See all References][1] Or, should we consider applied to refer to inorganic technology that has found some use being transferred to biological or medical contexts, such as 3D printing technology used to fabricate tissues? [2x4D bioprinting for biomedical applications. Gao, B. et al. Trends Biotechnol. 2016; 34: 746–756Abstract | Full Text | Full Text PDF | PubMed | Scopus (35)See all References][2] Certainly, translating a biological process from its native context to perform another biological task, such as appropriating the CRISPR/Cas systems from prokaryote immunity to edit genomes across the domains of life, would seem to qualify as applied biology [3xNext generation prokaryotic engineering: the CRISPR-Cas toolkit. Mougiakos, I. et al. Trends Biotechnol. 2016; 34: 575–587Abstract | Full Text | Full Text PDF | PubMed | Scopus (29)See all References][3].This special issue of TIBTECH covers applications in many different senses of the word; each in the context of environmental biotechnology. The topic of environmental biotechnology is particularly intriguing from the perspective of trying to better grasp the nature of applied biology because it demonstrates the usefulness of the small molecules, genes, proteins, and organisms present in the environment in so many different novel contexts.Some of these contexts are themselves solving environmental problems – largely centered on the theme of degradation and remediation. Four reviews specifically detail approaches to using microbes (and their associated enzymes) to remove pollutants from soil, water, and other environmental reservoirs: Chen et al. review biodegradation of nanostructured carbon; Tripathi and colleagues discuss using microbial consortia and plant-associated microorganisms to restore degraded land for sustainable development; Gao et al. explain why one particular class of microbes, the sphingomonads, might be especially well suited to remediating soil; and Mapelli and colleagues write about how microbes have been applied to clean up marine oil spills.In addition, two short articles discuss how microorganisms might play important roles in industrial processes: Wang and colleagues hypothesize that the denitrifying anaerobic methane oxidation capabilities of certain bacteria could be used for more sustainable wastewater treatment, and Ghosh and Kiran propose a process for using carbon-concentrating mechanisms native to algae to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from exhaust gas.The other side of the coin is taking biology present in the environment and applying it as technology to agriculture, pharmacology, industry, and even forensics. Zhang and colleagues review using the eukaryotic regulatory system RNAi as an insect resistance strategy in crop plants; a review by Marmeisse and colleagues describes new methods for bioprospecting for eukaryotic genes and how these genes might be used to construct new synthetic biology pathways; and Metcalf and colleagues give their opinion on how the microbiome might find its way into the criminal justice system as trace evidence. Finally, short articles by de la Parra and Quave, and Singh and colleagues, discuss how to use indigenous knowledge and endolichenic fungi, respectively, as new sources for pharmaceutical compounds.Of course, it is impossible to cover all of the many ways in which biology can either be used as a tool to address environmental problems or be discovered from the environment and repurposed. But, I hope you will agree that both are applied biology in their own way – and indubitably biotechnology.