Metabolic engineering of Bacillus subtilis

20 04 2023

We would like to invite you to the institute seminar: on Monday 24 of April at 2 pm in room 102B, MSc Zuzanna Ruszkowska from the Department of Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology will give a seminar entitled „ Metabolic engineering and construction of Bacillus subtilis chassis cells towards 2,3-butanediol production”.

Abstract:

The climate change and depleting fossil fuels increasingly force the change currently dominant model of linear economy for circular economy based on replacing fossil fuels with biomass and secondary raw materials. World production of biomass is approximated at 146 billion metric tons a year. A lot of biomass in form of waste or by-products is generated during food production and processing. Due to the growing popularity of the circular economy model, increasing production of biomass waste and the need for managing it, the concept of biorefineries is becoming more popular. In this concept, wastes and by-products are the base for the production of energy and value-added compounds using fungi and bacteria. One of the compounds which can be biologically produced is 2,3-butanediol, which is widely used in food, pharmaceutical, polymer and cosmetic industries. Variety of microorganisms can produce 2,3-butanediol as a metabolite and among them Bacillus subtilis stands out due to its safe characteristics. The attempts are made to enhance the biosynthesis yield of this compound using various genetic modifications.

The studies aim answering two basic questions: i) is it possible to achieve overproduction of 2,3-butanediol in selected B. subtilis strain by knocking-out operons of genes engaged in metabolic pathways of other by-products synthesis? ii) is it possible to use as carbon source by-products and wastes from various industrial processes? To answer these questions, the study has been proposed, results of which could be the basis for the study for constructing B. subtilis chassis cells for production of 2,3-butanediol.