Introduction – Company Background

GuangXin Industrial Co., Ltd. is a specialized manufacturer dedicated to the development and production of high-quality insoles.

With a strong foundation in material science and footwear ergonomics, we serve as a trusted partner for global brands seeking reliable insole solutions that combine comfort, functionality, and design.

With years of experience in insole production and OEM/ODM services, GuangXin has successfully supported a wide range of clients across various industries—including sportswear, health & wellness, orthopedic care, and daily footwear.

From initial prototyping to mass production, we provide comprehensive support tailored to each client’s market and application needs.

At GuangXin, we are committed to quality, innovation, and sustainable development. Every insole we produce reflects our dedication to precision craftsmanship, forward-thinking design, and ESG-driven practices.

By integrating eco-friendly materials, clean production processes, and responsible sourcing, we help our partners meet both market demand and environmental goals.

Core Strengths in Insole Manufacturing

At GuangXin Industrial, our core strength lies in our deep expertise and versatility in insole and pillow manufacturing. We specialize in working with a wide range of materials, including PU (polyurethane), natural latex, and advanced graphene composites, to develop insoles and pillows that meet diverse performance, comfort, and health-support needs.

Whether it's cushioning, support, breathability, or antibacterial function, we tailor material selection to the exact requirements of each project-whether for foot wellness or ergonomic sleep products.

We provide end-to-end manufacturing capabilities under one roof—covering every stage from material sourcing and foaming, to precision molding, lamination, cutting, sewing, and strict quality control. This full-process control not only ensures product consistency and durability, but also allows for faster lead times and better customization flexibility.

With our flexible production capacity, we accommodate both small batch custom orders and high-volume mass production with equal efficiency. Whether you're a startup launching your first insole or pillow line, or a global brand scaling up to meet market demand, GuangXin is equipped to deliver reliable OEM/ODM solutions that grow with your business.

Customization & OEM/ODM Flexibility

GuangXin offers exceptional flexibility in customization and OEM/ODM services, empowering our partners to create insole products that truly align with their brand identity and target market. We develop insoles tailored to specific foot shapes, end-user needs, and regional market preferences, ensuring optimal fit and functionality.

Our team supports comprehensive branding solutions, including logo printing, custom packaging, and product integration support for marketing campaigns. Whether you're launching a new product line or upgrading an existing one, we help your vision come to life with attention to detail and consistent brand presentation.

With fast prototyping services and efficient lead times, GuangXin helps reduce your time-to-market and respond quickly to evolving trends or seasonal demands. From concept to final production, we offer agile support that keeps you ahead of the competition.

Quality Assurance & Certifications

Quality is at the heart of everything we do. GuangXin implements a rigorous quality control system at every stage of production—ensuring that each insole meets the highest standards of consistency, comfort, and durability.

We provide a variety of in-house and third-party testing options, including antibacterial performance, odor control, durability testing, and eco-safety verification, to meet the specific needs of our clients and markets.

Our products are fully compliant with international safety and environmental standards, such as REACH, RoHS, and other applicable export regulations. This ensures seamless entry into global markets while supporting your ESG and product safety commitments.

ESG-Oriented Sustainable Production

At GuangXin Industrial, we are committed to integrating ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) values into every step of our manufacturing process. We actively pursue eco-conscious practices by utilizing eco-friendly materials and adopting low-carbon production methods to reduce environmental impact.

To support circular economy goals, we offer recycled and upcycled material options, including innovative applications such as recycled glass and repurposed LCD panel glass. These materials are processed using advanced techniques to retain performance while reducing waste—contributing to a more sustainable supply chain.

We also work closely with our partners to support their ESG compliance and sustainability reporting needs, providing documentation, traceability, and material data upon request. Whether you're aiming to meet corporate sustainability targets or align with global green regulations, GuangXin is your trusted manufacturing ally in building a better, greener future.

Let’s Build Your Next Insole Success Together

Looking for a reliable insole manufacturing partner that understands customization, quality, and flexibility? GuangXin Industrial Co., Ltd. specializes in high-performance insole production, offering tailored solutions for brands across the globe. Whether you're launching a new insole collection or expanding your existing product line, we provide OEM/ODM services built around your unique design and performance goals.

From small-batch custom orders to full-scale mass production, our flexible insole manufacturing capabilities adapt to your business needs. With expertise in PU, latex, and graphene insole materials, we turn ideas into functional, comfortable, and market-ready insoles that deliver value.

Contact us today to discuss your next insole project. Let GuangXin help you create custom insoles that stand out, perform better, and reflect your brand’s commitment to comfort, quality, and sustainability.

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Thailand insole OEM manufacturer

Are you looking for a trusted and experienced manufacturing partner that can bring your comfort-focused product ideas to life? GuangXin Industrial Co., Ltd. is your ideal OEM/ODM supplier, specializing in insole production, pillow manufacturing, and advanced graphene product design.

With decades of experience in insole OEM/ODM, we provide full-service manufacturing—from PU and latex to cutting-edge graphene-infused insoles—customized to meet your performance, support, and breathability requirements. Our production process is vertically integrated, covering everything from material sourcing and foaming to molding, cutting, and strict quality control.ODM pillow factory in Vietnam

Beyond insoles, GuangXin also offers pillow OEM/ODM services with a focus on ergonomic comfort and functional innovation. Whether you need memory foam, latex, or smart material integration for neck and sleep support, we deliver tailor-made solutions that reflect your brand’s values.

We are especially proud to lead the way in ESG-driven insole development. Through the use of recycled materials—such as repurposed LCD glass—and low-carbon production processes, we help our partners meet sustainability goals without compromising product quality. Our ESG insole solutions are designed not only for comfort but also for compliance with global environmental standards.Thailand ergonomic pillow OEM supplier

At GuangXin, we don’t just manufacture products—we create long-term value for your brand. Whether you're developing your first product line or scaling up globally, our flexible production capabilities and collaborative approach will help you go further, faster.High-performance insole OEM Indonesia

📩 Contact us today to learn how our insole OEM, pillow ODM, and graphene product design services can elevate your product offering—while aligning with the sustainability expectations of modern consumers.Innovative insole ODM solutions in Thailand

A new study by 279 scientists, led by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has updated our understanding of the flowering plant tree of life by analyzing genetic data from over 9,500 species. This research, involving an international collaboration and significant technological advancements, provides crucial insights for plant classification, conservation, and medicinal discovery. The findings are freely accessible, promising to enhance future botanical studies and applications. Scientists have constructed a groundbreaking tree of life using 1.8 billion letters of genetic code. A recent study published in the journal Nature by an international team of 279 scientists, including three biologists from the University of Michigan, provides the latest insights into the flowering plant tree of life. Using 1.8 billion letters of genetic code from more than 9,500 species covering almost 8,000 known flowering plant genera (ca. 60%), this achievement sheds new light on the evolutionary history of flowering plants and their rise to ecological dominance on Earth. Led by scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the research team believes the data will aid future attempts to identify new species, refine plant classification, uncover new medicinal compounds, and conserve plants in the face of climate change and biodiversity loss. The major milestone for plant science, involving 138 organizations internationally, was built on 15 times more data than any comparable studies of the flowering plant tree of life. Among the species sequenced for this study, more than 800 have never had their DNA sequenced before. Technological Challenges and Solutions The sheer amount of data unlocked by this research, which would take a single computer 18 years to process, is a huge stride toward building a tree of life for all 330,000 known species of flowering plants—a massive undertaking byKew’s Tree of Life Initiative. “Analyzing this unprecedented amount of data to decode the information hidden in millions of DNA sequences was a huge challenge. But it also offered the unique opportunity to reevaluate and extend our knowledge of the plant tree of life, opening a new window to explore the complexity of plant evolution,” said Alexandre Zuntini, a research fellow at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Tom Carruthers, postdoctoral researcher in the lab of U-M evolutionary biologist Stephen Smith, is co-lead author of the study with Zuntini, who he previously worked with at Kew. U-M plant systematist Richard Rabeler is a co-author. Angiosperm Tree of Life. Credit: RBG Kew “Flowering plants feed, clothe, and greet us whenever we walk into the woods. The construction of a flowering plant tree of life has been a significant challenge and goal for the field of evolutionary biology for more than a century,” said Smith, co-author of the study and professor in the U-M Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. “This project moves us closer to that goal by providing a massive dataset for most of the genera of flowering plants and offering one strategy to complete this goal.” Smith had two roles on the project. First, members of his lab—including former U-M graduate student Drew Larson—traveled to Kew to help sequence members of a large and diverse plant group called Ericales, which includes blueberries, tea, ebony, azaleas, rhododendrons and Brazil nuts. Second, Smith supervised the analyses and construction of the project dataset along with William Baker and Felix Forest of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and Wolf Eisenhardt of Aarhus University. “One of the biggest challenges faced by the team was the unexpected complexity underlying many of the gene regions, where different genes tell different evolutionary histories. Procedures had to be developed to examine these patterns on a scale that hadn’t been done before,” said Smith, who is also director of the Program in Biology and an associate curator in biodiversity informatics at the U-M Herbarium. New Insights into Evolution As co-leader of the study, Carruthers’ main responsibilities included scaling the evolutionary tree to time using 200 fossils, analyzing the different evolutionary histories of the genes underlying the overall evolutionary tree, and estimating rates of diversification in different flowering plant lineages at different times. “Constructing such a large tree of life for flowering plants, based on so many genes, sheds light on the evolutionary history of this special group, helping us to understand how they came to be such an integral and dominant part of the world,” Carruthers said. “The evolutionary relationships that are presented—and the data underlying them—will provide an important foundation for a lot of future studies.” The flowering plant tree of life, much like our own family tree, enables us to understand how different species are related to each other. The tree of life is uncovered by comparing DNA sequences between different species to identify changes (mutations) that accumulate over time like a molecular fossil record. Our understanding of the tree of life is improving rapidly in tandem with advances in DNA sequencing technology. For this study, new genomic techniques were developed to magnetically capture hundreds of genes and hundreds of thousands of letters of genetic code from every sample, orders of magnitude more than earlier methods. Arenaria globilfora. Credit: RBG Kew A key advantage of the team’s approach is that it enables a wide diversity of plant material, old and new, to be sequenced, even when the DNA is badly damaged. The vast treasure troves of dried plant material in the world’s herbarium collections, which comprise nearly 400 million scientific specimens of plants, can now be studied genetically. “In many ways, this novel approach has allowed us to collaborate with the botanists of the past by tapping into the wealth of data locked up in historic herbarium specimens, some of which were collected as far back as the early 19th century,” said Baker, senior research leader for Kew’s Tree of Life Initiative. “Our illustrious predecessors, such as Charles Darwin or Joseph Hooker, could not have anticipated how important these specimens would be in genomic research today. DNA was not even discovered in their lifetimes. Our work shows just how important these incredible botanical museums are to groundbreaking studies of life on Earth. Who knows what other undiscovered science opportunities lie within them?” Across all 9,506 species sequenced, more than 3,400 came from material sourced from 163 herbaria in 48 countries. “Sampling herbarium specimens for the study of plant relationships makes broad sampling from diverse areas of the world much more feasible than if one had to travel to get fresh material from the field,” said U-M’s Rabeler, a research scientist emeritus and former collection manager at the U-M Herbarium. For the tree of life project, Rabeler helped verify the identity of herbarium specimens selected for sampling and analyzed the resulting data. Flowering plants alone account for about 90% of all known plant life on land and are found virtually everywhere on the planet—from the steamiest tropics to the rocky outcrops of the Antarctic Peninsula. And yet, our understanding of how these plants came to dominate the scene soon after their origin has baffled scientists for generations, including Darwin. Flowering plants originated more than 140 million years ago after which they rapidly overtook other vascular plants including their closest living relatives—the gymnosperms (nonflowering plants that have naked seeds, such as cycads, conifers, and ginkgo). Darwin was mystified by the seemingly sudden appearance of such diversity in the fossil record. In an 1879 letter to Hooker, his close confidant and director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, he wrote: “The rapid development as far as we can judge of all the higher plants within recent geological times is an abominable mystery.” Using 200 fossils, the authors scaled their tree of life to time, revealing how flowering plants evolved across geological time. They found that early flowering plants did indeed explode in diversity, giving rise to more than 80% of the major lineages that exist today shortly after their origin. However, this trend then declined to a steadier rate for the next 100 million years until another surge in diversification about 40 million years ago, coinciding with a global decline in temperatures. These new insights would have fascinated Darwin and will surely help today’s scientists grappling with the challenges of understanding how and why species diversify. Global Collaboration and Open Access Assembling a tree of life this extensive would have been impossible without Kew’s scientists collaborating with many partners across the globe. In total, 279 authors were involved in the research, representing many different nationalities from 138 organizations in 27 countries. “The plant community has a long history of collaborating and coordinating molecular sequencing to generate a more comprehensive and robust plant tree of life. The effort that led to this paper continues in that tradition but scales up quite significantly,” said U-M’s Smith. The flowering plant tree of life has enormous potential in biodiversity research. This is because, just as one can predict the properties of an element based on its position in the periodic table, the location of a species in the tree of life allows us to predict its properties. The new data will thus be invaluable for enhancing many areas of science and beyond. To enable this, the tree and all of the data that underpin it have been made openly and freely accessible to both the public and scientific community, including through theKew Tree of Life Explorer. Open access will help scientists to make the best use of the data, such as combining it with artificial intelligence to predict which plant species may include molecules with medicinal potential. Similarly, the tree of life can be used to better understand and predict how pests and diseases are going to affect plants in the future. Ultimately, the authors note, the applications of this data will be driven by the ingenuity of the scientists accessing it. Reference: “Phylogenomics and the rise of the angiosperms” by Alexandre R. Zuntini, Tom Carruthers, Olivier Maurin, Paul C. Bailey, Kevin Leempoel, Grace E. Brewer, Niroshini Epitawalage, Elaine Françoso, Berta Gallego-Paramo, Catherine McGinnie, Raquel Negrão, Shyamali R. Roy, Lalita Simpson, Eduardo Toledo Romero, Vanessa M. A. Barber, Laura Botigué, James J. Clarkson, Robyn S. Cowan, Steven Dodsworth, Matthew G. Johnson, Jan T. Kim, Lisa Pokorny, Norman J. Wickett, Guilherme M. Antar, Lucinda DeBolt, Karime Gutierrez, Kasper P. Hendriks, Alina Hoewener, Ai-Qun Hu, Elizabeth M. Joyce, Izai A. B. S. Kikuchi, Isabel Larridon, Drew A. Larson, Elton John de Lírio, Jing-Xia Liu, Panagiota Malakasi, Natalia A. S. Przelomska, Toral Shah, Juan Viruel, Theodore R. Allnutt, Gabriel K. Ameka, Rose L. Andrew, Marc S. Appelhans, Montserrat Arista, María Jesús Ariza, Juan Arroyo, Watchara Arthan, Julien B. Bachelier, C. Donovan Bailey, Helen F. Barnes, Matthew D. Barrett, Russell L. Barrett, Randall J. Bayer, Michael J. Bayly, Ed Biffin, Nicky Biggs, Joanne L. Birch, Diego Bogarín, Renata Borosova, Alexander M. C. Bowles, Peter C. Boyce, Gemma L. C. Bramley, Marie Briggs, Linda Broadhurst, Gillian K. Brown, Jeremy J. Bruhl, Anne Bruneau, Sven Buerki, Edie Burns, Margaret Byrne, Stuart Cable, Ainsley Calladine, Martin W. Callmander, Ángela Cano, David J. Cantrill, Warren M. Cardinal-McTeague, Mónica M. Carlsen, Abigail J. A. Carruthers, Alejandra de Castro Mateo, Mark W. Chase, Lars W. Chatrou, Martin Cheek, Shilin Chen, Maarten J. M. Christenhusz, Pascal-Antoine Christin, Mark A. Clements, Skye C. Coffey, John G. Conran, Xavier Cornejo, Thomas L. P. Couvreur, Ian D. Cowie, Laszlo Csiba, Iain Darbyshire, Gerrit Davidse, Nina M. J. Davies, Aaron P. Davis, Kor-jent van Dijk, Stephen R. Downie, Marco F. Duretto, Melvin R. Duvall, Sara L. Edwards, Urs Eggli, Roy H. J. Erkens, Marcial Escudero, Manuel de la Estrella, Federico Fabriani, Michael F. Fay, Paola de L. Ferreira, Sarah Z. Ficinski, Rachael M. Fowler, Sue Frisby, Lin Fu, Tim Fulcher, Mercè Galbany-Casals, Elliot M. Gardner, Dmitry A. German, Augusto Giaretta, Marc Gibernau, Lynn J. Gillespie, Cynthia C. González, David J. Goyder, Sean W. Graham, Aurélie Grall, Laura Green, Bee F. Gunn, Diego G. Gutiérrez, Jan Hackel, Thomas Haevermans, Anna Haigh, Jocelyn C. Hall, Tony Hall, Melissa J. Harrison, Sebastian A. Hatt, Oriane Hidalgo, Trevor R. Hodkinson, Gareth D. Holmes, Helen C. F. Hopkins, Christopher J. Jackson, Shelley A. James, Richard W. Jobson, Gudrun Kadereit, Imalka M. Kahandawala, Kent Kainulainen, Masahiro Kato, Elizabeth A. Kellogg, Graham J. King, Beata Klejevskaja, Bente B. Klitgaard, Ronell R. Klopper, Sandra Knapp, Marcus A. Koch, James H. Leebens-Mack, Frederic Lens, Christine J. Leon, Étienne Léveillé-Bourret, Gwilym P. Lewis, De-Zhu Li, Lan Li, Sigrid Liede-Schumann, Tatyana Livshultz, David Lorence, Meng Lu, Patricia Lu-Irving, Jaquelini Luber, Eve J. Lucas, Manuel Luján, Mabel Lum, Terry D. Macfarlane, Carlos Magdalena, Vidal F. Mansano, Lizo E. Masters, Simon J. Mayo, Kristina McColl, Angela J. McDonnell, Andrew E. McDougall, Todd G. B. McLay, Hannah McPherson, Rosa I. Meneses, Vincent S. F. T. Merckx, Fabián A. Michelangeli, John D. Mitchell, Alexandre K. Monro, Michael J. Moore, Taryn L. Mueller, Klaus Mummenhoff, Jérôme Munzinger, Priscilla Muriel, Daniel J. Murphy, Katharina Nargar, Lars Nauheimer, Francis J. Nge, Reto Nyffeler, Andrés Orejuela, Edgardo M. Ortiz, Luis Palazzesi, Ariane Luna Peixoto, Susan K. Pell, Jaume Pellicer, Darin S. Penneys, Oscar A. Perez-Escobar, Claes Persson, Marc Pignal, Yohan Pillon, José R. Pirani, Gregory M. Plunkett, Robyn F. Powell, Ghillean T. Prance, Carmen Puglisi, Ming Qin, Richard K. Rabeler, Paul E. J. Rees, Matthew Renner, Eric H. Roalson, Michele Rodda, Zachary S. Rogers, Saba Rokni, Rolf Rutishauser, Miguel F. de Salas, Hanno Schaefer, Rowan J. Schley, Alexander Schmidt-Lebuhn, Alison Shapcott, Ihsan Al-Shehbaz, Kelly A. Shepherd, Mark P. Simmons, André O. Simões, Ana Rita G. Simões, Michelle Siros, Eric C. Smidt, James F. Smith, Neil Snow, Douglas E. Soltis, Pamela S. Soltis, Robert J. Soreng, Cynthia A. Sothers, Julian R. Starr, Peter F. Stevens, Shannon C. K. Straub, Lena Struwe, Jennifer M. Taylor, Ian R. H. Telford, Andrew H. Thornhill, Ifeanna Tooth, Anna Trias-Blasi, Frank Udovicic, Timothy M. A. Utteridge, Jose C. Del Valle, G. Anthony Verboom, Helen P. Vonow, Maria S. Vorontsova, Jurriaan M. de Vos, Noor Al-Wattar, Michelle Waycott, Cassiano A. D. Welker, Adam J. White, Jan J. Wieringa, Luis T. Williamson, Trevor C. Wilson, Sin Yeng Wong, Lisa A. Woods, Roseina Woods, Stuart Worboys, Martin Xanthos, Ya Yang, Yu-Xiao Zhang, Meng-Yuan Zhou, Sue Zmarzty, Fernando O. Zuloaga, Alexandre Antonelli, Sidonie Bellot, Darren M. Crayn, Olwen M. Grace, Paul J. Kersey, Ilia J. Leitch, Hervé Sauquet, Stephen A. Smith, Wolf L. Eiserhardt, Félix Forest and William J. Baker, 24 April 2024, Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07324-0

A robot punches out pinhead-sized pieces from a gel layer. The narrow blue bands contain proteins from a bacterial culture. Subsequently, the proteins contained in the tiny gel pieces will be sorted in greater detail. Credit: University of Oldenburg/Mohssen Assanimoghaddam A comprehensive understanding of metabolism enables the prediction of the growth of a crucial environmental microbe. A group led by Professor Ralf Rabus, a microbiologist at the University of Oldenburg, and his Ph.D. student Patrick Becker has made significant advancements in comprehending the cellular processes of a widespread environmental bacterium. The team conducted an extensive analysis of the entire metabolic network of the bacterial strain Aromatoleum aromaticum EbN1T and utilized the findings to construct a metabolic model that allows them to forecast the growth of these microbes in various environmental conditions. According to their report in the journal mSystems, the researchers uncovered surprising mechanisms that enable the bacteria to adjust to fluctuating environmental conditions. These results are crucial for the study of ecosystems, where the Aromatoleum strain, as a representative of a significant group of environmental bacteria, can act as a model organism. The findings could also have implications for the cleanup of contaminated sites and biotechnological applications. The studied bacterial strain specializes in the utilization of organic substances that are difficult to break down and is generally found in soil and in aquatic sediments. The microbes thrive in a variety of conditions including oxygen, low-oxygen, and oxygen-free layers, and are also extremely versatile in terms of nutrient intake. They metabolize more than 40 different organic compounds including highly stable, naturally occurring substances such as components of lignin, the main structural material found in wood, and long-lived pollutants and components of petroleum. Ph.D. student Patrick Becker gained a holistic understanding of the metabolism of the bacterium Aromatoleum aromaticum through careful laboratory studies. Credit: University of Oldenburg A Microbe With Special Abilities In particular, substances with a benzene ring composed of six carbon atoms, known as aromatic compounds, can be biodegraded by these microbes – with or without the aid of oxygen. Due to these abilities, Aromatoleum plays an important environmental role in the complete degradation of organic compounds in soil and sediments to carbon dioxide – a process which is also useful in biological soil remediation. The aim of the current study was to gain a holistic understanding of the functioning of this unicellular organism. To this end, the researchers cultivated the microbes under both oxic and anoxic conditions – i.e. with and without oxygen – using five different nutrient substrates. For each of these ten different growth conditions, they grew 25 cultures and then examined the various samples using molecular biology methods (technical term: multi-omics) which enable simultaneous analysis of all the transcribed genes in a cell, all the proteins produced, and all its metabolic products. The bacterium Aromatoleum aromaticum EbN1T (outlined in black, at the bottom) interacts with the biotic and abiotic environment in many ways: anthropogenic input, the activity of other microorganisms and processes in nature generate different organic substances (different colored dots), which the bacterium uses as food. At the same time, these substances are also utilized by other microorganisms (food competition). The metabolic network within the bacterial cell converts and degrades the substances via different pathways (left). The cell in turn produces building materials such as DNA, proteins, sugar compounds, or lipids (right), which it needs for growth. Depending on environmental conditions, the cell obtains energy with the help of oxygen or nitrate (NO3-) – shown on the far left of the image. Credit: Ralf Rabus and Patrick Becker/University of Oldenburg Systems Biology Approach “With this systems biology approach, you gain a deep understanding of all the inner workings of an organism,” explains Rabus, who heads the General and Molecular Microbiology research group at the University of Oldenburg’s Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM). “You break down the bacterium into its individual components and then you can put them back together – in a model that predicts how fast a culture will grow and how much biomass it will produce.” Through their meticulous work, the researchers obtained a comprehensive understanding of the metabolic reactions of this bacterial strain. They found that around 200 genes are involved in the degradation processes and determined which enzymes break down the substances added as nutrients and via which intermediates the various nutrients are decomposed. The scientists incorporated their findings about the metabolic network into a growth model, and demonstrated that the model predictions largely corresponded to the measured data. “We can now describe the organism with a level of precision that has so far only been possible with very few other bacteria,” says Rabus. This holistic view of the bacteria’s cellular inner workings forms the basis for a better understanding of the interactions between the analyzed strain (and related bacteria) and their biotic and abiotic environment, he adds, and can also help scientists to better predict the activity of these unicellular organisms in polluted soils and thus, for example, determine the optimal conditions for the remediation of a contaminated site. A Surprising Waste of Energy By combining different methods, the team was able to uncover unexpected mechanisms in the metabolism of these bacteria. Much to the researchers’ surprise, it emerged that the microbe produces several enzymes which they cannot use under the given growth conditions – which at first glance would seem to be a superfluous expenditure of energy. “Usually the bacterial cells detect whether oxygen is present in their environment and then, via specific mechanisms, activate only the nutrient-specific metabolic pathway with the corresponding enzymes,” Rabus explains. But with some substrates, the microbe produced all the enzymes for aerobic and anaerobic degradation pathways regardless of oxygen levels – even though some of these enzymes were entirely superfluous. Rabus suspects that this apparent waste is in fact a strategy for surviving in an unstable environment: “Even if oxygen levels suddenly fluctuate – which is often the case in natural environments – Aromatoleum remains flexible and can utilize this nutrient and produce energy as required,” the microbiologist explains, adding that so far, no other bacteria are known to use such a mechanism. Reference: “Systems Biology of Aromatic Compound Catabolism in Facultative Anaerobic Aromatoleum aromaticum EbN1T” by Patrick Becker, Sarah Kirstein, Daniel Wünsch, Julia Koblitz, Ramona Buschen, Lars Wöhlbrand, Boyke Bunk and Ralf Rabus, 29 November 2022, mSystems. DOI: 10.1128/msystems.00685-22

This image shows adult coelacanth scales. Credit: Laurent Ballesta Coelacanths may live five times longer than researchers expected. Once thought to be extinct, lobe-finned coelacanths are enormous fish that live deep in the ocean. Now, researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on June 17 have evidence that, in addition to their impressive size, coelacanths also can live for an impressively long time — perhaps nearly a century. The researchers found that their oldest specimen was 84 years old. They also report that coelacanths live life extremely slowly in other ways, reaching maturity around the age of 55 and gestating their offspring for five years. “Our most important finding is that the coelacanth’s age was underestimated by a factor of five,” says Kélig Mahé of IFREMER Channel and North Sea Fisheries Research Unit in Boulogne-sur-mer, France. “Our new age estimation allowed us to re-appraise the coelacanth’s body growth, which happens to be one of the slowest among marine fish of similar size, as well as other life-history traits, showing that the coelacanth’s life history is actually one of the slowest of all fish.” This image shows a coelacanth embryo with yolk sac from the MNHN collection. Credit: MNHN Earlier studies attempted to age coelacanths by directly observing growth rings on the scales of a small sample of 12 specimens. Those studies led to the notion that the fish didn’t live more than 20 years. If that were the case, it would make coelacanths among the fastest-growing fish given their large size. That seemed surprising considering that the coelacanth’s other known biological and ecological features, including slow metabolism and low fecundity, were more typical of fish with slow life histories and slow growth like most other deep-water species. In the new study, Mahé, along with co-authors Bruno Ernande and Marc Herbin, took advantage of the fact that the French National Museum of Natural History (Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle de Paris, MNHN) has one of the largest collections of coelacanths in the world, ranging from embryos in utero to individuals of almost two meters. They were able to examine 27 specimens in all. They also used new methods, including polarized light microscopy and scale interpretation technology mastered at IFREMER’s Sclerochronology Centre, Boulogne-sur-mer, France, to estimate individuals’ age and body growth more precisely than before. While earlier studies relied on more readily visible calcified structures called macro-circuli to age the coelacanths much as counting growth rings can age a tree, the new approaches allowed the researchers to pick up on much tinier and nearly imperceptible circuli on the scales. Their findings suggest that the coelacanths actually are about five times older than was previously thought. “We demonstrated that these circuli were actually annual growth marks, whereas the previously observed macro-circuli were not,” Mahé says. “It meant that the maximum longevity of coelacanth was five times longer than previously thought, hence around a century.” Their study of two embryos showed they were both about five years old. Using a growth model to back-calculate gestation length based on the size of offspring at birth, the researchers got the same answer. They now think that coelacanth offspring grow and develop for five years inside their mothers prior to birth. “Coelacanth appears to have one of, if not the slowest life histories among marine fish, and close to those of deep-sea sharks and roughies,” Mahé says. The researchers say that their findings have implications for the coelacanth’s conservation and future. They note that the African coelacanth is assessed as critically endangered in the Red List of Threatened Species of IUCN. “Long-lived species characterized by slow life history and relatively low fecundity are known to be extremely vulnerable to perturbations of a natural or anthropic nature due to their very low replacement rate,” Mahé says. “Our results thus suggest that it may be even more threatened than expected due to its peculiar life history. Consequently, these new pieces of information on coelacanths’ biology and life history are essential to the conservation and management of this species.” In future studies, they plan to perform microchemistry analyses on coelacanth scales to find out whether a coelacanth’s growth is related to temperature. The answer will provide some insight into the effects of global warming on this vulnerable species. Reference: “New scale analyses reveal centenarian coelacanths Latimeria chalumnae” by Kélig Mahé, Bruno Ernande and Marc Herbin, 17 June 2021, Current Biology. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.05.054

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