Research

As the national university, we champion and support innovative research that addresses the country’s most pressing challenges.

10 Nov 2023

UP Los Baños

The local Chinese population helped make Iloilo the textile capital of the Philippines in the 19th century

Textiles played a significant role in Philippine economic history. In this study, archival materials and records have shown that the...

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07 Nov 2023

UP Cebu

Knowing whether initiatives are employee-led, leader-led, organization-led or HR-led can increase organization citizenship behavior in the service industry

Most studies about organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) focus on actions that employees, supervisors, or owners of organizations should exhibit. OCB...

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03 Nov 2023

UP Cebu

Public lecture to tackle challenges to democracy and politics in a post-truth era

The University of the Philippines Cebu Central Visayas Studies and College of Social Sciences in cooperation with the Critical Policy...

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27 Oct 2023

UP Diliman

First and most extensive study in the Philippines shows diagnostic accuracy of a multivariate index assay alone and in combination with ovarian imaging for ovarian cancer prediction

This study determined the utility of ovarian imaging and a second-generation multivariate index assay in predicting  the risk of ovarian...

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23 Oct 2023

UP Baguio

Covid-19 caused more psychological distress on women and young people than older persons

The results of this study represent 14,133 participants across 6 continents, with data from 19 nations. The most consistent finding...

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19 Oct 2023

UP Diliman, UP System

Children as young as two months are exposed to digital media for an average of two hours every day

The dramatic increase in the touchscreen exposure of very young children has raised issues regarding the potentials and perils that...

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11 Oct 2023

UP

Caves require greater management as important, but seldom studied, nonrenewable resources

Caves are significant nonrenewable resources that provide a variety of ecosystem services with varying sensitivities to disturbance. In the Philippines,...

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10 Oct 2023

UP Los Baños, UP Open University

Small islands in Northern Samar are linked by political, economic and social reasons

The Philippines as an archipelago is made up of many islands. Most of these islands are characterized as small, isolated,...

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06 Oct 2023

UP Los Baños

Online learning had adverse effects on the well-being and mental health of STEM students

This research adds to the growing body of literature pertaining to the extent and consequences of fully online
learning to Science,...

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05 Oct 2023

UP Manila

Teachers are still hesitant to talk about sex education due to cultural and religious factors

Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) enables children and young people to learn about the cognitive, emotional, physical, and social characteristics of...

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02 Oct 2023

UP Manila

Smart-city projects will not “reduce inequality, hold policymakers accountable or address the root causes of Manila’s problems”

The Philippines is said to fall behind when it comes to adopting digital technologies and urged to catch up with...

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14 Sep 2023

UP Diliman

The location and number of language areas in the brain differ among multilingual brain tumor patients

The location of the speech area in the brain may be different or located in several sites in patients who...

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Research

Bioavailable phosphorus (P) is critical for improving crop yields to meet the raising food demand driven by an increasing human population. Phosphate-solubilizing bacteria (PSB), as a major P activator, have gained widespread acceptance as environmentally friendly and readily available P agents to improve the acquisition of legacy P stocks in soils. This article reviews the form and transformation of soil P, and the diversity and molecular mechanisms of phosphate solubilization by PSB. Moreover, utilization of omics tools to explore microbial mediated soil P cycle and the effect of PSB inoculants on agricultural practices are summarized. We suggest that the whole native soil microbiome centered on PSB should be considered as a functional unit to promote P availability and contribute to low-input farming systems and cleaner environments.

The precise mechanism of mineral phosphate solubilization remains poorly understood, although some genes of PSB involved in mineral phosphate solubilization were cloned and characterized. Moreover, other promising novel genes and concrete functional networks have been shown to regulate the production of organic acids in the process of dissolving refractory inorganic phosphate by PSB. Therefore, it is necessary to continuously infuse new ideas
and technologies to explore key genes engaged in mobilizing mineral phosphate and reduce the susceptibility of PSB to changing soil environments based on established strategies. Increased attention should be paid to the application of multi-omics technologies centered on host genomes, combined with more commonly used microbe-focused techniques, to explore the spatiotemporal variation characteristics of biologically available P, dynamics of nutrient turnover and the genetic potential of soil microbe-mediated P cycling. It is vital to determine how PSB, as a component of the whole soil community, remobilize P to meet plant P requirements. Among these techniques, single-cell Raman spectroscopy and P tracers can be considered to discern and locate external P and internal remobilized P by PSB. Additionally, the multiple interactions of PSB with other plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria should be brought to the forefront to harness the coupling effects in the microbe-plant ecosystem.

Authors: Hui-Ping Li, Qing-Qing Han, Qiong-Mei Lui and Ya-Nan Gan (all from Key Laboratory of Grassland Livestock Industry Innovation, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Center for Grassland Microbiome, State Key Laboratory of Herbage Improvement and Grassland Agro-ecosystems, College of Pastoral Agriculture Science and Technology, Lanzhou University), Christopher Rencing (Institute of Environmental Microbiology, College of Resource and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University), Christopher Rencing (Institute of Environmental Microbiology, College of Resource and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University), Windell Rivera (Institute of Biology, College of Science, University of the Philippines Diliman), Qi Zhao and Jin-Lin Zhang (both from the Key Laboratory of Grassland Livestock Industry Innovation, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Center for Grassland Microbiome, State Key Laboratory of Herbage Improvement and Grassland Agro-ecosystems, College of Pastoral Agriculture Science and Technology)

Read the full paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0944501323000770#:~:text=Phosphate%2Dsolubilizing%20bacteria%20(PSB),the%20genetic%20potential%20of%20PSB.