Selenium Innovation Lab

Overview

Selenium is an essential trace element for humans and animals but not for plants. Current selenium research focuses mainly on molecular biology, biochemistry, and nutrition, with insufficient attention to plant nutrition, soil science, biogeochemistry, ecology, and societal impacts. Selenium not only is important in maintaining human and animal health but also influences soil, rhizosphere (soil around plant roots), plant, gut, and ecological health, and even affects health at a societal level.

The Selenium Innovation Laboratory (XILab) was established at XJTLU in 2023 to study selenium through the lens of One Health, a concept in epidemiology and public health. This concept underscores the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health, advocating a unified approach to research and treatment, especially concerning zoonotic pathogens, antibiotic resistance, and pathogen carriers. XILab’s focus is “One Health on Selenium: From Soil to Gut”, an initiative to examine selenium’s impact on soil health through its interference with the physiological actions of heavy metals (cadmium, arsenic, mercury, lead, antimony); the health of the rhizosphere related to selenium’s benefits to the microbiome; and gut health through dietary selenium intake.

The XILab encourages cooperation among the university, industry and research sectors and interdepartmental collaboration. It contributes to scientific research, teaching, and industry in corresponding fields.

Research areas

Study focus areas include:

• interactions between selenium and toxic substances (for example, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, lead, antimony, microplastics, nanoplastics, and antibiotics);
• roles of the environmental microbiome in selenium accumulation and transformation; and
• assessment of health effects (for example, gut health) from various selenium sources

Director

Dr Linxi Yuan is a Senior Associate Professor at the Department of Health and Environmental Sciences at XJTLU and holds an honorary appointment from the University of Liverpool. He has written two books, published two book chapters, and edited two special issues on selenium biofortification. He has published 105 peer-reviewed scientific papers. Dr Yuan serves as council member of the International Society for Selenium Research; founder of the China Youth Branch of the same society; and member of the Subcommittee on Fluorine, Arsenic, and Selenium, China Association of Endemic Diseases.

Team

PhD students:

Huawei Zang (Year Four), co-supervised with the University of Science and Technology of China. Research area: responses of selenium and rhizosphere bacterial community to elevated atmospheric CO₂

Wenyao Shi (Year Three), co-supervised with the University of Liverpool. Research area: interactions between selenium and cadmium based on chemical speciation perspectives

Yuhua Duan (Year One), co-supervised with the University of Liverpool. Research area: explore the regulation mechanism between selenium and trace nutrients in selenium hyperaccumulating plant

Yidan Wang (Year One), co-supervised with the University of Liverpool. Research area: Development on selenium-zinc enriched probiotics and their health effect assessment

Master’s students:

Guangxuan Du (Year Three), co-supervised with Yangzhou University. Research area: responses of selenium and rhizosphere bacterial community to interplanting between wheat and selenium hyperaccumulating plant

Yumeng Yang (Year Two). Research area: bacterial vertical transmission in selenium hyperaccumulating plant under sexual/nutritional reproduction

Haonan Li (Year Two). Research area: roles of rhizosphere bacterial community mercury stress in water spinach

Yingxue Ma (Year One). Research area: investigate the potential of using selenium hyperaccumulating plants to phytoremediate soils contaminated with multiple heavy metals

Final year project student:

Yiwen Gao (2023-2024). Research area: Rhizospheric interactions between selenium and nanoplastic particles in vegetable

Selenium hyperaccumulating plant in lab pot

Selenium hyperaccumulating plants in lab pots

Research team

Contact us

• Email: Yuan@xjtlu.edu.cn
• Phone: 0512-81889873
• Address: 111 Ren’ai Road, ES333, Suzhou SIP, 215123, Jiangsu, China