Sunday, May 4, 2008
2-18

Strain engineering enables the conversion of inexpensive raw materials into a variety of higher-value products via a single uniform fermentation process

Kevin A. Jarrell, Gabriel O. Reznik, Brendan G. Kennan, Michelle A. Pynn, and Jeffrey J. Todd. Modular Genetics, Inc., 325 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

Surfactants are one of the most widely used categories of chemicals.  They are found in nearly every formulation marketed today including food, personal care items, paints, plastics and laundry detergent.  Most surfactants are derived from petroleum.  However, the observation that certain microorganisms, such as Bacillus subtilis, naturally secrete surfactants creates the potential for production of surfactants from biorenewable resources on an industrial scale via fermentation.  We have used gene engineering to produce Bacillus strains that secrete novel surfactants with particular desired properties, such as increase water solubility, demonstrating that strain engineering can be used to produce diverse surfactants tailored to particular end-use applications.  Although each engineered strain produces a particular novel surfactant, the strains are otherwise identical.  All strains are grown using the same culture conditions and the same growth media, which is derived from inexpensive feedstocks such as crude glycerol, hydrolyzed soy protein and distillers grains.  These data demonstrate that strain engineering enables the conversion of inexpensive raw materials into a variety of higher-value products via a single uniform fermentation process.


Web Page: www.modulargenetics.com