Recording date:

Duration:
00:29:05

Speaker:
Prof. Dr. Nico J. Claassens, Laboratory of Microbiology, Wageningen University, The Netherlands

Abstract:

Microbial bioproduction of chemicals, proteins, fuels and other products is a promising approach for more sustainable production. However, typically microbial production uses sugar or other agricultural-derived feedstocks. This makes the  ioproduction still reliant on agriculture, which can cause undesired environmental impacts and is typically a relatively inefficient route to convert solar energy into products. A promising alternative feedstock for microbial bioproduction are  educed C1-molecules, such as the soluble C1-molecules methanol and formate, which can be generated from renewable electricity and CO2. However, many microorganisms are not capable of using these substrates, or they only use them  nefficiently via energy inefficient metabolism. One of the promising synthetic routes for more energy-efficient C1-metabolism is the reductive glycine pathway. This route has been implemented by us and other groups in various biotechnological organisms in recent years. However, the open challenge is that growth rates and yields, and consequently bioproduction yields are limited and so far underperform compared to natural C1-metabolism. In recent years  we employed various  pproaches, including transposon-mediated random genome integration, lab evolution and rational engineering steps. Using these we recently managed to improve yields and growth rates on formate via the reductive glycine pathway in  upriavidus necator and E. coli. We performed proteomics analyses to better understand proteome allocation in these strains. This enables us to study how the proteome  can be more optimally be shifted for faster growth and bioproduction. I will  lso highlight how in C. necator we improved the yield on formate beyond the highest reported natural yields on formate via the Calvin Cycle. These results gives us more confidence that synthetic C1-metabolism can eventually be used for more  fficient, sustainable bioproduction.