Bryn Meyers
It has long been known that certain species of bacteria naturally produce compounds like butane and propane, which are important fuel chemicals. This knowledge has prompted scientific endeavors to control the lipid-making machinery of bacterial cells to create specific lipids in mass amounts. If successful, these bacteria would be considered microbial factories for the production of biorenewable chemicals. Thus, our long-term goal is to investigate the fatty acid output of the soil bacterium Bacillus subtilis in response to altering the genetics of two important fatty acid synthesis enzymes: KAS and TE.
We designed fifteen different bacterial strains using different versions of the KAS and TE enzymes. To determine how these different versions affect the types and amounts of excreted lipids, we extracted and analyzed the chemicals that accumulated in the growth media of the corresponding bacterial cultures. We used the program AMDIS to analyze the identity of chemicals found in the media and subsequent statistical analyses were carried out to identify products that are either specifically produced or produced at higher levels in the engineered strains as compared to wild type Bacillus.
Outcomes from this study will be useful in genetic engineering of the B. subtilis microbial factory. As the field of metabolic engineering is relatively young, there is a diverse array of research to be done regarding the development of microbial factories. After our fundamental characterizations and initial optimization of production, we can explore several avenues to further improve the efficiency of our microbial factory and, importantly, assess the functionalities of our resulting products.
Duration: 04/23/2019
Principal Investigator(s): Dr. Marna Yandeau-Nelson