Browsing by Author "Poblete-Castro, Ignacio"

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    Engineering the Osmotic State of Pseudomonas putida KT2440 for Efficient Cell Disruption and Downstream Processing of Poly(3-Hydroxyalkanoates)
    (2020) Poblete-Castro, Ignacio; Aravena-Carrasco, Carla; Orellana-Saez, Matias; Pacheco, Nicolas; Cabrera, Alex; Manuel Borrero-de Acuna, Jose
    In the last decade, the development of novel programmable cell lytic systems based on different inducible genetic constructs like the holin-endolysin and lysozyme appears as a promising alternative to circumvent the use of costly enzymes and mechanical disrupters for downstream processing of intracellular microbial products. Despite the advances, upon activation of these systems the cellular disruption of the biocatalyst occurs in an extended period, thus delaying the recovery of poly(3-hydroxyalkanoate) (PHA). Herein the osmotic state of Pseudomonas putida KT2440 was engineered by inactivating the inner-membrane residing rescue valve MscL, which is responsible mainly for circumventing low-osmolarity challenges. Then the major outer membrane porin OprF and the specific porin OprE were overproduced during PHA producing conditions on decanoate-grown cells. The engineered P. putida strains carrying each porin showed no impairment on growth rate and final biomass and PHA yield after 48 h cultivation. Expression of both porins in tandem in the mutant strain KT Delta mscL-oprFE led to a slight reduction of the biomass synthesis (similar to 10%) but higher PHA accumulation (%wt) relative to the cell dry mass. Each strain was then challenged to an osmotic upshift for 1 h and subsequently to a rapid passage to a hypotonic condition where the membrane stability of the KT Delta mscL-oprFE suffered damage, resulting in a rapid reduction of cell viability. Cell disruption accounted for >95% of the cell population within 3 h as reported by colony forming units (CFU), FACS analyses, and transmission electron microscopy. PHA recovery yielded 94.2% of the biosynthesized biopolymer displaying no significant alterations on the final monomer composition. This study can serve as an efficient genetic platform for the recovery of any microbial intracellular compound allowing less unit operation steps for cellular disruption.
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    Fed-Batch mcl- Polyhydroxyalkanoates Production in Pseudomonas putida KT2440 and ΔphaZ Mutant on Biodiesel-Derived Crude Glycerol
    (2021) Borrero-de Acuna, Jose Manuel; Rohde, Manfred; Saldias, Cesar; Poblete-Castro, Ignacio
    Crude glycerol has emerged as a suitable feedstock for the biotechnological production of various industrial chemicals given its high surplus catalyzed by the biodiesel industry. Pseudomonas bacteria metabolize the polyol into several biopolymers, including alginate and medium-chain-length poly(3-hydroxyalkanoates) (mcl-PHAs). Although P. putida is a suited platform to derive these polyoxoesters from crude glycerol, the attained concentrations in batch and fed-batch cultures are still low. In this study, we employed P. putida KT2440 and the hyper-PHA producer Delta phaZ mutant in two different fed-batch modes to synthesize mcl-PHAs from raw glycerol. Initially, the cells grew in a batch phase (mu(max) 0.21 h(-1)) for 22 h followed by a carbon-limiting exponential feeding, where the specific growth rate was set at 0.1 (h(-1)), resulting in a cell dry weight (CDW) of nearly 50 (g L-1) at 40 h cultivation. During the PHA production stage, we supplied the substrate at a constant rate of 50 (g h(-1)), where the KT2440 and the Delta phaZ produced 9.7 and 12.7 gPHA L-1, respectively, after 60 h cultivation. We next evaluated the PHA production ability of the P. putida strains using a DO-stat approach under nitrogen depletion. Citric acid was the main by-product secreted by the cells, accumulating in the culture broth up to 48 (g L-1) under nitrogen limitation. The mutant Delta phaZ amassed 38.9% of the CDW as mcl-PHA and exhibited a specific PHA volumetric productivity of 0.34 (g L-1 h(-1)), 48% higher than the parental KT2440 under the same growth conditions. The biosynthesized mcl-PHAs had average molecular weights ranging from 460 to 505 KDa and a polydispersity index (PDI) of 2.4-2.6. Here, we demonstrated that the DO-stat feeding approach in high cell density cultures enables the high yield production of mcl-PHA in P. putida strains using the industrial crude glycerol, where the fed-batch process selection is essential to exploit the superior biopolymer production hallmarks of engineered bacterial strains.