Microbial Cell Factories

Aim

Based on knowledge obtained in earlier courses the course gives knowledge about, and an understanding of, how microorganisms can be used in e.g. food industry and environmental biotechnology. In addition, it covers how microorganisms can be used and modified for fermentation-based production of a wide spectrum of products such as energy carriers, biochemicals, drugs etc.

The basis for the above is knowledge about the living conditions, growth, metabolism and gene regulation of microorganisms, and further, a large number of methods in microbiology, molecular biology and biotechnology of microorganisms.

After the course the student should be able to:

• describe and differentiate between the main differences between prokaryotic and eukaryotic microorganisms with respect to cell morphology, cellular systems and biochemicals synthesis routes.
• describe and account for the properties, the requirements for growth/production, and areas of use, of the most commonly used microorganisms in industrial biotechnology.
• describe microbial production of proteins/enzymes, and describe the properties of microbial cell factories for efficient production, purification and use of protein/enzyme products.
• describe central metabolic pathways and their regulation for the production of industrially relevant primary and secondary metabolites for sustainable development and production of e g biofuels and biopolymers from renewable raw materials.
• describe various methods to analyze the flows in metabolic pathways and account for how obtained information, together with novel methods in synthetic biology and gene editing, can be used for metabolic engineering, aiming at increased yield or new products.
• independently evaluate experimental data and information from scientific articles in the field and draw conclusions based on several methods/sources, to be reported orally and in writing with the correct terminology.

Content

Naturally occurring microbial processes used for production of e.g. food, biofuels and other biological processes such as waste water treatment.

The cell structure of prokaryotic and eukaryotic microorganisms and the sub-cellular localization of various metabolic processes.

Properties, needs and areas of use of the most commonly used cell factories including E. coli, B. subtilis, P. pastoris, Y. lipolytica, Streptomyces sp, S. cerevisae and micro algae.

The use of microorganisms for the recombinant production of peptides, proteins and enzymes, and for that, the associated issues of codon usage, post-translational modifications, protein folding/-processing and the influence on down-stream purification/activation.

Specific metabolic processes to produce biotechnologically relevant products from primary or secondary metabolism, such as organic acids, biofuels and biopolymers.

Fundamental methods in analysis of metabolic flows and their control systems via various omics approaches (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics).

CRISPR/Cas based methods for gene editing of microorganisms and how methods in synthetic biology, gene editing and protein engineering can be used for metabolic engineering of microbial cell factories for new products and/or enhanced product yield.