Trans-aconitic acid from Aspergillus terreus – a new biopesticide and bio-based plasticizer

Trans-aconitic acid TAA (CAS RN 4023-65-8) is an unsaturated tricarboxylic acid that occurs in various plants. Although it exhibits broad application potential in agriculture, food, biomaterials, and green chemistry, its practical use remains limited. This is primarily because the traditional production processes of plant extraction (from sugar cane)and chemical synthesis (complex and inefficient) cannot achieve large-scale production at a low cost.

Researchers around LU Xuefeng, director of the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, have now established a cell factory for the production of TAA based on a genome-edited industrial strain of Aspergillus terreus. Several rounds of metabolic engineering resulted in strains which produced 57 g/L TAA in shake flask cultures. Scale-up to tank fermentations up to 120 kL – in cooperation with Shandong Lukang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.– then led to yields of 88 g/L after 100 hours. A simple recovery procedure combining membrane concentration and crystallization provided TAA crystals with a purity of 98.4%. Given its superior nematicidal properties, QIBEBT and Lukang Pharmaceutical are now in the process of registering TAA as a new nematicide biopesticide.

The QIBEBT team has further found that TAA esters (trans-Aconitates) can be used as plasticizers and could replace the ambiguous phthalates widely used in plastic products. Haier Blood Technology Co., a Qingdao-based company, plans to use TAA esters as plasticizers in its PVC-based blood bags and other products.

TAA ester’s wide temperature stability, from -46°C to 120°C, might also find applications in automotive cable materials as they exhibit excellent resistance to high-temperature volatilization and low-temperature brittle cracking.

In summary, biomanufacturing based on smart cells of A. terreus has provided a new material, TAA and TAA esters, which offer exciting application potentials as a biopesticide and a non-toxic bioplasticizer.

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RamEx: high-throughput microbial ramanome analyses with accurate quality assessment

https://www.cas.cn/syky/202602/t20260226_5102870.shtml

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-026-02339-3

A research team at the CAS Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology has developed RamEx, an integrated analysis framework for Ramanome big data. This platform, tailored to the characteristics of Raman spectroscopy data, establishes a one-stop workflow from data reading and standardized preprocessing to downstream data mining, centered on automated quality control algorithms and efficient parallel computing processes. It also demonstrates a systematic analysis of microbial metabolomical heterogeneity and metabolic pattern differentiation at the single-cell level.

Raman genomics deep analysis can track the dynamic changes in the composition of macromolecules such as lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids in different cells, thus revealing the differentiation and succession patterns of microbial metabolic states at the population scale with single-cell precision. This provides new research ideas and technical pathways for understanding the functional organization and environmental adaptation mechanisms of complex communities.

RamEx removes spectral noise in Raman-based microbial cell sorting

http://english.cas.cn/newsroom/research-news/202602/t20260224_1151116.shtml

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40168-026-02339-3

Scientists from the CAS Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology have developed a novel computational tool, RamEx, designed to resolve the computational bottleneck in high-throughput microbial Ramanomics.

RamEx streamlines the full Ramanomic analysis pipeline, from data preprocessing and automated quality control to advanced data mining. An Iterative Convolutional Outlier Detection (ICOD) algorithm tackles spectral noise in an unsupervised manner to dynamically identify and eliminate spectral artifacts, ensuring high-quality input for downstream analysis.

The platform’s performance was validated using diverse datasets, including pathogenic bacteria, probiotics, and yeast fermentation systems. Notably, RamEx successfully captured phenotypic heterogeneity in genetically identical yeast cells by detecting subtle metabolic fluctuations and tracking the dynamic accumulation of intracellular macromolecules, including lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids.

Qingdao Port achieves fully unmanned operation of a container ship

https://japanese.cri.cn/2026/02/21/ARTI1771656131487329

The “Zhifei,” China’s first commercially operational smart container ship, accurately docked at a berth at the automated wharf in Qingdao Port, using unmanned autonomous navigation mode. This marks the first time that China has achieved an unmanned operation of a container ship, including navigation, berthing, and operation.

After the “Zhifei” container ship arrived at its designated location, the vacuum suction cups installed in its vacuum automatic mooring system powerfully attracted the hull, firmly securing it to the berth in less than 30 seconds, without any manual mooring work. The terminal’s fully automated loading and unloading equipment then operated simultaneously, and China’s A-TOS (Atelier Terminal Smart Management System) and A-ECS (Analytical Equipment Control System) worked together to precisely coordinate equipment such as automated cranes and automated guided vehicles at millisecond speeds, completing the container loading and unloading process.

The Zhifei is equipped with smart navigation core system, and as China’s first smart cargo ship for commercial operation, it features three navigation modes: manned, remotely controlled, and unmanned autonomous navigation.

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