Self-Assembled Nanocoatings Protect Microbial Fertilizers for Climate-Resilient Agriculture
Name
burke-et-al-2023-self-assembled-nanocoatings-protect-microbial-fertilizers-for-climate-resilient-agriculture.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
7.04 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
60c058295256547fd671f9c845f7ac66
Author(s)
Burke, Benjamin
Fan, Gang
Wasuwanich, Pris
Moore, Evan B
Furst, Ariel L
Date Issued
November 27, 2023
Journal
JACS Au
Publisher
American Chemical Society
Citation
JACS Au 2023, 3, 11, 2973–2980
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Chemical fertilizers have been crucial for sustaining the current global population by supplementing overused farmland to support consistent food production, but their use is unsustainable. Pseudomonas chlororaphis is a nitrogen-fixing bacterium that could be used as a fertilizer replacement, but this microbe is delicate. It is sensitive to stressors, such as freeze-drying and high temperatures. Here, we demonstrate protection of P. chlororaphis from freeze-drying, high temperatures (50 oC), and high humidity using self-assembling metal-phenolic network (MPN) coatings. The composition of the MPN is found to significantly impact its protective efficacy, and with optimized compositions, no viability loss is observed for MPN-coated microbes under conditions where uncoated cells do not survive. Further, we demonstrate that MPN-coated microbes improve germination of seeds by 150% as compared to those treated with fresh P. chlororaphis. Taken together, these results demonstrate the protective capabilities of MPNs against environmental stressors and represent a critical step towards enabling the production and storage of delicate microbes under nonideal conditions.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Environmental Health Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1021/jacsau.3c00426
