Science Highlights
Biofilms move electrons long distances across two distinct layers, even under starving conditions
Long distance
Released: May 23, 2013
Bacteria can move electrons at least half a millimeter across a scaffolding made by themselves, of themselves, even under starving conditions—this new finding by EMSL staff and users challenges conventional wisdom.
Biochemical studies provide insight into an RNA silencing pathway
The great repression
Released: January 29, 2013
New studies using Arabidopsis thaliana and mass spectrometry tools at EMSL are offering insight about genetic and biochemical processes that govern gene regulation and development in plants—an understanding relevant to biomass-to-biofuel production.
Protein signaling between soybean root hairs, bacteria reveals core cellular processes
Orchestrating change
Released: December 12, 2012
Proteomics tools at EMSL helped characterize soybean root hairs and their responses to symbiotic rhizobial colonization and infection. These studies could help scientists redesign plants and improve crop yields, benefitting both food and biofuel production.
Important new method probes dynamics of live microbial colonies in time, space
A living portrait
Released: June 28, 2012
An exciting and novel technique developed at EMSL now allows researchers to characterize, with high sensitivity and in time and space, the metabolite profile of living microbial communities grown on a soft agar surface.
Finding key structural insights into the pathological hallmark of Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's proteins
Released: September 26, 2011
A team of researchers from University of Illinois and EMSL apply a new approach for discovering therapeutic targets for Parkinson's Disease.
Extracellular polymeric substances stop migration of subsurface contaminants
Microbes that Immobilize
Released: June 01, 2011
Scientists used a model organism isolated from a uranium seep of the Columbia River to quantify how extracellular polymeric substances in subsurface environments can be used to immobilize radionuclide contaminants such as uranium U (VI) at contaminated sites.
Pressurized pepsin digestion as an automatable alternative to trypsin
Top-to-Bottom Protein Characterization
Released: March 16, 2011
Scientists from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Korea University have demonstrated that using pepsin digestion and integrating two strategies for in-depth characterization and quantitation of proteins—bottom-up and top-down—can provide more effective protein characterization in less time.
Proteomics Data Validate Bacterial Growth Model
Just How Fast Can Bacteria Grow? It Depends.
Released: November 29, 2010
Some fast-growing bacteria such as pathogenic strains of E. coli can sicken and kill us; other fast-growing bacteria in a subsurface environment can be used to gobble up chemical contaminants. Proteomic research at EMSL is helping validate a bacterial model and is providing insights into the key proteins and metabolic pathways that are essential for encouraging and discouraging bacterial growth in a changing environment.
