Microbial Biotechnology

What are microbes? Microbes are small single-celled organisms Either free-living or in colonies They can belong to any of the three domains

Eubacteria (Bacteria) Archaebacteria (Archaea) Eukaryota (Eukaryotes) Three Domains

Eubacteria Gram-negative and gram-positive prokaryotes Either autotrophs or heterotrophs Can be aerobic or anaerobic Mesophiles Examples: E. coli Lactobacillus Agrobacterium Staphylococcus

Archea Ancient domain, but only recently identified Through DNA analysis they were determined to differ significantly from eubacteria Found predominantly in extreme environments (Extremophiles) Thermophiles °C Psychrophiles 0- 20°C Alkaliphiles pH>9 Halophiles 3- 20% salt Methanogens use H 2 + CO 2 to produce CH 4

Eukaryotes Predominately yeasts/molds, protists, algae Sac shaped cells that form sexual spores Examples: Sacchromyces Penicillium Aspergillus Pichia

Commercial Uses of Microbes Products Bioconversion/Biocatalysis Agriculture Bioremediation Oil/Mineral Recovery

Fermentation is a process for the production of useful products through mass culture of single-cells The end products or the various intermediate products (metabolites) are siphoned off & purified for commercial use stirred tank reactor Fermenter or Bioreactor

L Fermenter1000L Disposable Bag

Types of Products Produced in Microbes Amino Acids Vitamins Food Additives Enzymes Recombinant Protein Drugs Antibiotics Fuels Plastics

Enzyme: chymosin - the enzyme used to curdle milk products Hormone: bST - bovine somatotropin; used to increase milk production Examples of bacterially-expressed proteins:

1928: Alexander Fleming discovered the first antibiotic. He observed that Penicillium fungus made an antibiotic, penicillin, that killed S. aureus. 1940s: Penicillin was tested clinically and mass produced. Original Penicillium moulds produced less than 10 units of penicillin per ml of fermentation broth (1943) By 1955 Penicillium strains produced 8000 units/ml Mutation with UV, mustard gas, and X-Ray, strain selection / culture improvement Is this GMO?

How Are Microbes Modified? Artifical Selection Recombiant DNA Metabolic Engineering

Transgenic microbes are created when cDNAs for the protein product are cloned into expression vectors Human genes inserted into E. coli Genes from extremophiles are moved to mesophiles Due to the ease in culturing of mesophiles Mesophiles also have 5 to 10x higher growth rates Recombinant DNA Microbes

Enzyme/Drug

Metabolic Engineering, manipulation of pathways within an organism to optimize the production of a compound Done by turning off particular genes, either through mutation or deletion Products are also gained by altering the microbes environment Metabolically Engineered Cell Cheap Carbon Source Industrial Chemicals Chemical Precursors Biopolymers Vitamins Amino Acids

GlucoseNH 4 + Pyruvate L-lactate D-Alanine L-Alanine 100% L-Alanine NAD + NADH NAD + L-LDH AlaOH NADH NAD+ Racemase The microbe is forced to produce alanine at higher than normal amounts

Carotenoid production in E.coli cells

Fermentation Products Enzymes

Enzymes, the most common product produced by microbes Overall value of industrial enzymes is about $2.0 billion 1 They are found in many household items that you would never think to have a biotechnology component Enzymes data

Enzyme NameGE OrganismUse (examples) -acetolactate bacteria Removes bitter substances decarboxylase from beer -amylasebacteriaConverts starch to simple sugar CatalasefungiReduces food deterioration Chymosinbacteria or fungiClots casein to make cheese -glucanasebacteriaImproves beer filtration Glucose isomerasebacteriaConverts glucose to fructose Glucose oxidasefungiReduces food deterioration LipasefungiOil and fat modification Maltogenic amylasebacteriaSlows staling of breads PectinesterasefungiImproves fruit juice clarity ProteasebacteriaImproves bread dough structure xylanase (hemicellulase)bacteria or fungiEnhances rising of bread dough

Detergent Enzymes

Detergents are the largest application of industrial enzymes Traditionally these are lipolases, proteases & amylases A recent innovation is the addition of mannanase This enzyme aids in removing stains containing guar gum These enzymes are engineered to improve stability in the presence of detergent, alkaline pH, and cold water

Subtilisin, a protease used in laundry detergents The recombinant protein was engineered to remain active in the presence of bleach Bleach caused the oxidation of one amino acid (methionine) and the enzyme lost 90% of its activity By replacing this amino acid with alanine, the engineered enzyme was no longer sensitive to oxidation

Directed evolution is the most recent tool utilized in the creation of new and better enzymes (& other proteins)

Subtilisin normally functions in aqueous solution Mutations were introduced randomly throughout the structure of the enzyme Only 0.1–1% of the mutations were beneficial, but… Activity in 60% dimethylformamide was improved 256-fold doi: /S (02)

Enzymes for Feed

Enzymes are used in animal feed to breakdown cellulose (cellulase) New use of enzymes (phytases) which breakdown phytic acid This allows better utilization of plant phosphorus stores Allowing bone-meal to be removed from feeds The latest generation of phytases are from fungus and have been engineered to survive high temperatures used during food processing 65% of poultry and 10% of swine feeds contain enzymes

Where do the genes for these enzymes come from? Nature is still an important source (Gene Prospecting) ~<1% of the microbes have been grown in pure cultures But what if you cannot find the enzyme you want? You engineer it… In the 1980s rational protein engineering was introduced as a way of optimizing enzymes

Recombinant Drugs Besides antibiotics which are derived from microorganisms Protein medicines are produced by inserting human genes into microbes

1982, FDA approves the first recombinant protein drug, human insulin produced by E. coli developed by Genentech Today there are >75 recombinant protein drugs approved by the FDA with 100s more being studied Currently the global market for recombinant protein drugs is $47.4 billion 1 (2006)

ProductMicrobePurpose InsulinE. coliDiabetes treatment Interleukin-2E. coliCancer/immune system stimulant EGFE. coliwound healing InterferonsE. coli/yeastCancer/virus treatments ProurokinaseE.coli/yeastAnticoagulant/heart attacks CSFE. coli/yeastImmune stimulant TaxolE. coliovarian cancer

Other Products From Microbes Fuels, Plastics, Medications

Ethanol Production Produced via anaerobic fermentation by yeast Corn starch is hydrolyzed to glucose monomers

Problem with Corn Ethanol Ethanol contains 76000BTU/gal Takes ~98000BTU/gal to produce from corn sugar Gasoline contains BTU/gal Costs 22000BTU/gal to extract and refine A BTU (British thermal unit) is defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit billion gallons of ethanol were produced U.S. consumes 140 billion gallons of gasoline/yr

Plastics Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) is a polymer made by some microbes as a way of storing carbon Up to 80% of the microbes biomass is plastic PHA is sold to make shampoo bottles in Germany, and disposable razors in Japan The microbe Pseudomonas putida converts styrene to PHA

Bioconversion Utilization of microbes to modify a compound Useful when multi-step chemical synthesis is expensive or inefficient Often microbial conversion is combined with traditional chemistry to reduce the steps necessary The most common use of bioconversion is in the synthesis of steroids such as hormones & corticosteroids

starting product End products

Microbes and Agriculture

Frost damages many crops such as citrus trees & strawberries When fruit freeze the ice crystals form As the plants thaws they are effectively turned to mush Frost damage to an orange leaf and fruit Frost Damage

Some ice crystal nucleation is due to bacterial activity Pseudomonas syringae promotes the development of ice at 0 to 2°C If the bacteria are not present ice does not form until between –6 and –8°C

A strain of P. syringae called ice minus was developed Plants were to be sprayed with the ice minus strain This inhibits colonization by the ice plus (wild) strain The EPA declared the new strain to be a pesticide This made the review process lengthy and burdensome The company thought it too expensive to pursue However the ice plus strain has found a purpose…

Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is an aerobic spore-forming bacterium During sporulation produces insecticidal crystal protein (ICP), a toxin (Cry) The toxin brakes down quickly in the environment They have no toxicity to humans & there is no withholding period on produce sprayed with Bt Cry toxins vary in their toxicity and specificity Microbial Pesticides

Bioremediation

Bioremediation is reclaiming or cleaning of contaminated sites using microbes or other organisms This entails the removal, degradation, or sequestering of pollutants &/or toxic wastes

Bacteria are isolated based on their efficiency at digesting & converting the waste The bacteria are tested for performance and safety Bacteria are placed back in the waste environment in high concentrations The bacteria grow & in the process digest & convert the waste into CO 2 and H 2 0

What can be cleaned up using bioremediation? Oil spills Waste water Plastics Chemicals (PCBs) Toxic Metals

Oil/Wastewater Cleanup

Bioremediation Bacteria degrade organic matter in sewage. Bacteria degrade or detoxify pollutants such as oil and mercury

Microbes that digest hydrocarbons found throughout the environment These naturally occurring microbes are utilized during a spill to clean shore lines Fertilizer is added to supply the nutrients phosphorus and nitrogen This was approach was used after the Exxon Valdez Stimulated the natural rate of biodegradation by 2 to 5x There have yet to be any other instances of this being used on a large-scale

Exxon Valdez off the Coast of Alaska

BeforeAfter Smaller scale cleanup is feasible For 3 months nutrients and microbes were sprayed on this field After 11 months the site was deemed clean 6000yards 3 petroleum conc. Before 4000ppm After 100ppm

BeforeAfter Treatment of domestic sewage or industrial waste Utilizes aeration to oxygenate allowing aerobic microbes to digest solid waste Wastewater

Plastic Degradation

140 million tons of plastics are produced each year Traditional plastics are very stable and do not degrade Some plastics have been shown to be biodegradable Strains of bacteria have been isolated that breakdown: Polyurethane Polyvinyl alcohol Nylon-66 The degradation pathways are currently under study

Chemicals Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)

PCBs have low water solubility, good insulating properties, high boiling points and resistance to chemicals The largest uses for PCBs was in capacitors, transformers, & as plasticizers

1977, Monsanto (main producer) stops all PCB production Millions of lbs of PCBs are still in place around the world The stability properties that made PCBs so useful have allowed them to persist in the environment Most people in industrialized countries have PCBs in their tissue

Microbes that dehalogenate PCBs have been isolated This process is referred to as halorespiration Involves the replacement of the Cl with an –OH This process is multi-step with four enzymes required These enzymes are now the target of protein engineering to optimize their performance

Heavy Metal Clean up

Uranium processing has left contaminated groundwater sites across the United States and the world Traditional pump-and-treat methods take decades and expose workers to toxic levels of uranium Geobacter to convert soluble uranium to insoluble uraninite Uraninite stays put instead of mixing with water used for drinking or irrigation The microbes are encouraged to multiply by injecting acetate In ~50 days, 70% of the uranium is converted into uraninite

Biomining

Microbe assisted mining has gone on for millennia Early copper miners used microbes to leach copper from ore without even knowing it Low-grade ore and mine tailings are exploited biologically Sulfides of metals like zinc, copper, nickel, cobalt, iron, tungsten, lead are insoluble in water These sulfides are converted to sulfate which are soluble The sulfates leach out of the ore and are then extracted

Cu 2 S not solubleCuSO 4 is soluble

Commercial Bioleaching Tanks